A Turkish court has adjourned the trial of 26 officials from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), including the party’s İstanbul chair, Özgür Çelik, to February 23, 2026, the Cumhuriyet daily reported.
The case stems from events on January 31, when officials gathered outside the İstanbul Courthouse as Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu arrived to give a statement to prosecutors allegedly resisted the police.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office sought prison sentences of up to 17 years for the defendants on charges of “resisting law enforcement,” “participating in unlawful demonstrations,” “intentional injury” and “damaging public property.”
Tensions escalated on the day of the incident when police blocked the CHP campaign bus from approaching the courthouse and used pepper spray to disperse people attempting to walk toward it. The confrontation was widely viewed as an effort to suppress public support for İmamoğlu and prevent him from making a press statement after his testimony.
In his defense Çelik said the authorities were attempting to criminalize the exercise of constitutional rights, including peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. “What we witnessed was an effort to silence dissent and intimidate opposition figures,” he said, emphasizing that the charges reflect a broader pattern of judicial harassment targeting critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Çelik is also a defendant, along with nine other party officials, in another indictment issued by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, who is seeking prison sentences of up to three years over alleged election irregularities during the party’s Istanbul provincial congress on October 8, 2023, at which Çelik defeated former chairperson Cemal Canpolat, securing 342 delegate votes to Canpolat’s 310.
Observers noted that the indictment is part of a broader crackdown on the CHP, which has intensified following the politically motivated arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a leading challenger to Erdoğan in the 2028 presidential race. İmamoğlu was detained on March 19 and later jailed on corruption charges widely viewed as politically motivated, sparking mass protests and heightening political tensions across the country.
To date at least 17 CHP mayors, dozens of party officials and even İmamoğlu’s lawyers have been detained or prosecuted.
Turkey has been suffering from an erosion of the rule of law, which many say has worsened since a failed coup in July 2016, when more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors were removed under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
In a development that confirmed the deterioration of the Turkish judiciary, Turkey was ranked 117th out of 142 countries in the World Justice Project’s 2024 Rule of Law Index.
