This morning Turkey was shaken by the news of the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem imamoğlu. It was he himself who announced him, in a video posted by his account X who portrays him in his home: «Hundreds of policemen showed up at my door and broke into my house. I have confidence in my nation », were the words of the mayor.
The Turkish media report that its arrest is due to the accusations of “extortion, corruption, fraud and auction disturbance by a criminal organization” moved against him, as well as for the “aiding and abetting towards the PKK terrorist organization” (the Kurdish organization whose head of Ocalan has recently asked for the purpose of the armed struggle). The Prosecutor General of Istanbul lets it know that Imamoğlu would be “the leader of a criminal group”.
The raid of the Turkish police forces did not limit himself to the mayor alone, in fact, about one hundred people close to him would be arrested, including the Turkish journalist Ismail Saymaza well -known opponent of the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The accusation of the General Prosecutor of Istanbul against the journalist is to “have favored the attempt to overturn the Turkish government” during the protests of Gezi Park, events dating back to 2013. The Secretary General of the Municipality of Istanbul and other local politicians, entrepreneurs and municipal administrators are also arrested.
The arrest of the mayor of Istanbul obviously triggered the ire of Republican popular party (CHP), the main political training formation a Erdoğan among whose row Imamoğlu He played, who defined what happened this morning as “a coup d’état against national will”. The CHP, of clear Kemalist inspiration and therefore strongly secular and in some ways more “westernist”, was in government in the city of Istanbul since 2019, when Imamoğlu He won the March elections for a handful of votes, before they were canceled and repeated in June, where the mayor won with an even more solid majority. Last year he had been re -elected again.
It is not the first time that Imamoğlu He has to face trouble with Turkish justice, in 2022 he had been sentenced to two years in prison for insulting a public official, the sentence also prohibited him from participating in political life but, being still the subject of investigation by the Court of Appeal, allowed the politician to apply and win the elections of Istanbul. Imamoğlu It was also one of the main candidates to run to the next presidential elections of 2028, being the only reference figure, together with Özgür Özel, of the main opposition party.
The situation is stretched in the most important Turkish city, the Prefecture of Istanbul has in fact ordered the temporary closure of some metro stopsprobably with the aim of preventing the assembly of demonstrators in support of the mayor. Some social platforms, such as X, YouTube and Instagram, are also unreachable in Türkiye..
Even the equity markets have accused the blow. Borsa Istanbul opened by recording a loss of 7%before the transactions were temporarily suspended, while the Turkish lira has lost 5% of its nominal value. In the afternoon there were the First events in support of the mayorwith hundreds of students who collided with the police near the University of Istanbul.
