Turkey’s Justice Ministry has failed to respond to visitation requests for İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was arrested two months ago, effectively preventing senior opposition figures from seeing him in prison, Turkish Minute reported Monday.
İmamoğlu, a senior member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and his party’s presidential candidate for the next election, was detained on March 19 and later arrested on corruption charges widely criticized as politically motivated. His arrest, seen as targeting the biggest political rival to longtime President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2028 presidential election, sparked Turkey’s worst protests in decades.
According to Cumhuriyet, several politicians, including İstanbul’s acting mayor, Nuri Aslan, and the CHP’s İstanbul Chair Özgür Çelik, have submitted formal requests to the Justice Ministry to visit İmamoğlu over the past two weeks. As of Tuesday, none had received a response. Under Turkish law, the absence of an official reply effectively blocks the visits from taking place.
Üsküdar Mayor Sinem Dedetaş raised the issue during a recent CHP rally in Silivri, saying, “We are so close to our mayor, yet we cannot meet with him. A specific restriction has been imposed on mayors, making it particularly difficult for us to visit him.”
The ministry has not publicly commented on the accusations.
The lack of access comes amid heightened tensions between the government and the opposition following a wave of legal actions targeting key political figures.
A similar situation reportedly occurred earlier this year with Ümit Özdağ, leader of the anti-refugee Victory Party (ZP), who has been in pretrial detention since January 21 on charges of inciting hatred after delivering a speech that harshly criticized the government. While Özdağ was initially allowed visitors, recent visitation requests by party officials have gone unanswered by the ministry, Cumhuriyet said.
Prosecutors are seeking up to seven years, 10 months in prison for the ZP leader under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalizes inciting hatred among the public, with additional penalties because the alleged offense was committed through press and broadcast.
He is currently being held at Marmara Prison, formerly known as Silivri Prison, a high-security facility west of İstanbul where many political prisoners are jailed, including İmamoğlu.
İmamoğlu’s arrest came following months of growing judicial pressure on the party that led to the arrest and removal from office of several of its mayors in İstanbul on either terrorism or corruption charges, seen as politically motivated.
Critics say Erdoğan wants to sideline İmamoğlu in the next presidential race, with the ongoing crackdown on him and his party.
