Turkey has arrested over 1,100 people since the Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was apprehended on March 19, the country’s interior minister confirmed Monday
İmamoğlu is one of the most popular politicians in the country, a member of the opposite Republican People’s Party (CHP), a secularist party founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. He has for years been seen as a frontrunner in the presidential race against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been in power for over two decades. The CHP made that challenge official by nominating İmamoğlu as its candidate for the next presidential election on Sunday; the election is currently scheduled to take place in 2028.
The Erdoğan regime arrested İmamoğlu and several others on charges of alleged corruption involving “luxury villas,” state outlet Anadolu Agency explained on Monday. He is also facing nebulous accusations of association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist terrorist organization.
The Turkish government often tacks on random and seemingly incoherent charges of association with “terrorists” when detaining Erdoğan’s political foes. In one particularly notorious incident, for example, Turkish prosecutors charged an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, with criminal propagation of Christianity, association with the Hizmet Islamic movement (which the Erdoğan regime considers a terrorist organization), and the PKK, and Marxist group with atheist tendencies.
Supporters of the Istanbul mayor have condemned his arrest and dismissed the charges against him as similarly fabricated. The detention has prompted hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets in protest in Turkey’s largest cities, most prominently Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir.
İmamoğlu’s social media accounts published images from the protests on Monday, with the caption, “hope is here!”
As a result of those protests, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Monday, 1,133 people are in police custody on charges including attacking law enforcement officers, disturbing the peace, and acts of violence.
“Between March 19 and March 23, a total of 1,133 individuals were taken into custody for participating in unauthorized demonstrations,” Yerlikaya wrote in a social media statement translated by the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet. “Among those apprehended, individuals with ties to 12 terrorist organizations were identified.”
The newspaper did not list the alleged terrorist organizations involved.
The interior minister listed 17 criminal charges that the detained are being processed for, including “narcotics-related crimes, theft, fraud and sexual assault to intentional bodily harm.” He did not name any of those involved or indicate whether they were members of political parties or other groups involved in the protests. Hurriyet reported that several of those believed to have disappeared into police custody are journalists present at the protests to do their jobs, however.
These arrests also appear to be independent of the dozens of people arrested in the past week for posting opinions on social media. The Turkish penal code does not protect freedom of speech and specifically outlaws certain opinions, including negative opinions of Atatürk and the president of the Republic at any given time. Erdoğan himself appears immune to the Atatürk law as he has condemned the secularist leader publicly for allegedly having “destroyed” the Turkish language through his modernizations, among other criticism.
Yerlikaya, the interior minister, further claimed that the government had documented 123 police officers injured while on duty during protests.
” Authorities confiscated acid, stones, clubs, fireworks, Molotov cocktails, axes and knives,” he alleged. “Legal proceedings are ongoing against individuals who assaulted law enforcement, vandalized public property and endangered public safety.”
Yerlikaya accused CHP supporters of attempting “to exploit our youth and citizens for political agendas” by leading them to protest and warned, “no one will escape accountability.”
Erdoğan has personally been dismissive of the protests and condemnation of the jailing of one his top political challengers.
“We have neither the time to waste on pointless debates nor stacks of money to recklessly throw around,” Erdoğan said on Thursday. “CHP’s issues are not the country’s issues, but the issues of a handful of opportunists in their headquarters. We have no time to waste on the opposition’s theatrics.”
The CHP leadership, in turn, has referred to İmamoğlu’s arrest as a “coup” and celebrated his nomination as presidential candidate as the “strongest response” to Erdoğan’s attempt to perpetuate his control of the country. Özgür Özel, the chair of the CHP, addressed an Istanbul protest on Sunday, promising that his party would launch a “great struggle” against the ruling Islamists.
“You have the scenes today. Millions of people voted in the primaries. As a result, 14.8 million people voted in favor of İmamoğlu’s nomination for the presidential polls,” Özel declared. “Starting from tomorrow morning, we will initiate a great struggle by harnessing the power of organization and using this strength for the good sake of all of us.”
It remains unclear at press time if İmamoğlu will appear on the presidential ballot, in addition to the date of the presidential election also remaining unconfirmed. If he does, he will not be the first to campaign for the presidency in Turkey will in prison. In 2016, the Erdoğan regime arrested the head of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) at the time, Selahattin Demirtaş, a popular pro-Kurdish politician running for president. Demirtaş faced a flurry of incoherent charges including “disrupting the unity and integrity of the state” and alleged support for the PKK. He was ultimately sentenced to 42 years in prison and remains behind bars at press time.
İmamoğlu has faced persecution under the ruling regime for years, including being charged and convicted in 2022 on charges of “defaming” regime officials. While not imprisoned, İmamoğlu was banned from holding any political positions for life. He won the mayorship of Istanbul after appealing, which remains stuck in courts but not currently active.
İmamoğlu’s mayoral victory in April 2024 was one of the worst electoral defeats for the AKP in recent memory, signaling growing discontent with the increasingly repressive Erdoğan government and its poor performance on the economy, its belligerence with neighbors Iraq and Syria, and silencing of political dissent. The mayor’s arrest will reportedly trigger a new election, as he has been stripped of the title, which Hurriyet reported would take place on March 26.
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