A huge crowd of protesters gathered in Istanbul on Saturday for a mass demonstration against the arrest of opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu.
İmamoğlu was arrested last week on corruption charges and booted out of his office as Istanbul mayor. Widely viewed as the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, İmamoğlu was on Monday officially nominated as a presidential candidate.
His arrest has sparked a week of protests in the country. Turkish authorities have ramped up a crackdown against the opposition, locking up more than a thousand demonstrators and detaining journalists.
Özgür Özel, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) who organized Saturday’s demonstration, said on X that there were 2.2 million people in the crowd. Özel told French outlet Le Monde he planned to convene regular Saturday rallies across the country, with additional protests organized in Istanbul every Wednesday.
The European Commission this week urged Ankara to “uphold democratic values.”
Posted by John3262005
3 Comments
2.2 million is a higher population than all but three American cities
Roughly 1000 people have been arrested, though protests are growing apace. I don’t think this is enough to topple Erdogan, or even win Imamoglu his freedom, but hopefully it stems the authoritarian tide for a while. The scale of the protests is very impressive
Ekrem Imamoğlu has already beaten Erdogan’s regime 3 times. The 1st time was in 2019 when despite all the electoral shenanigans in the local elections, Ekrem still barely beat Erdogan’s ally in the election for Istanbul Mayor. The 2nd time was also in 2019. Erdogan refused to accept the results of the elections. He declared it fraudulent, his cronies in the Judiciary annulled the election & there was a rerun election. Ekrem ended up beating Erdogan’s ally in a landslide that time. The 1st run was a slight win. The 2nd time was a landslide. Then in 2024, Erdogan wanted to take back Istanbul. So he ordered many investigations into Ekrem and had his minions in the police, media & judiciary try to sabotage Ekrem. Ekrem ended winning again but by 12% margin. Ekrem would’ve beaten Erdogan in a Presidential race. That’s why Erdogan is doing this. I hope & pray that Ekrem can beat Erdogan for the 4th time. These millions of protesters give me a lot of hope.