Yesterday was a day of furious protests in Türkiye. Despite the ban on the event imposed by the Prefecture of Istanbul until Sunday 23 March, tens of thousands of Turks took to the streets to protest against the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem imamoğlu.
The first citizen of the most important Turkish city had been reached yesterday in the early hours of the morning by numerous police officers to be put in custody based on the accusations made against him by the General Prosecutor of Istanbul: Corruption, extortion, fraud and aiding and abetting the Kurdish extremist organization PKKin Türkiye considered terrorist.
About the same hours in the same hours have been arrested dozens of people linked to Imamoğluamong which politicians and journalists are reported. The story, considering the proximity to the primaries of the Republican People’s Party (the main opposition party to the President Erdoğan), to which the mayor of Istanbul had candidate and then aimed at the 2028 presidential elections, made one think of a real purge policy.
Yesterday the current one spoke leader of the Republican People’s Party, Özgür Özelwho accused Erdoğan to have targeted Imamoğlu Because after the electoral blow suffered last year she feared losing the next elections. Özel also launched the accusation: “It is a coup attempt, it is clear that the question is not a political struggle, but a matter of existence or not of the country».
Yesterday the person concerned also spoke. Imamoğlu In fact, he published a handwritten note on social media, where he says that “our nation will give the necessary answer to lies, conspiracy, traps, those who violate the rights of people and steal the will of the people”.
Only the voice of the Minister of Justice was heard from the government, Yilmaz tuncwhich rejected the accusations of “political process” by asserting that “characterizing the investigations conducted by an impartial and independent judiciary as something similar to a coup d’état is extremely dangerous and incorrect», Underlining how the Turkish judiciary” does not take instructions from anyone. The separation of the powers between legislative, executive and judicial is essential in our country, “said the minister.
The tens of thousands of Turks who took to the streets in the main cities of the country do not seem to think soin the city of the mayor arrested the students of the University of Istanbul collided in the afternoon with the police near the University. In the evening an event was held outside the Town Hall of Istanbul. Protests were also found in the capital Ankara and Izmir, on the Aegean coasts.
The police in Anti -Sommossa blocked the roads that led to the Security Department of Vatan, where Imamoğlu was brought following his arrest.
Yesterday the first reactions from the European chancelleries, with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also arrived, which asserted that “Turkey is a country nominated for EU membership and must support democratic values, in particular the rights of elected representatives, it is essential that Turkey respects these fundamental principles”.
