Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators rallied Saturday in Istanbul in defense of democracy after the arrest of mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkiye’s worst street unrest in over a decade.
Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkiye’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid Al-Fitr celebration which starts Sunday, marking the end of Ramadan.
Ozgur Ozel, leader of the main opposition party CHP which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but AFP was unable to independently confirm the figure.
The mass protests, which began with Imamoglu’s March 19 detention on contested fraud and “terror” charges, have prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.
Widely seen as the only politician capable of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as CHP’s candidate for the 2028 race on the day he was jailed.
As his wife, Dilek, arrived on stage, massive applause arose from the crowd which was a sea of Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkiye’s founding father.
Imamoglu was resoundingly re-elected mayor for the third time last year. The anger over his arrest which began in Istanbul quickly spread across Turkiye.
Nightly protests outside Istanbul City Hall drew vast crowds and often degenerated into running battles with riot police, who used teargas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.
“We are here today for our homeland. We, the people, elect our rulers,” insisted 17-year-old Melis Basak Ergun, a young protester who vowed they would never be cowed “by violence or tear gas.”
“We stand behind our mayor, Imamoglu.”
Turkish authorities did not comment on the latest mass protest. Erdogan has previously branded the demonstrations “street terror.”
In a letter read out to the crowd, Imamoglu addressed Turkiye’s youngsters, saying: “If young people are on the front line, it’s because they’re the ones who feel most anxiety about the future.
“The youth are telling Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Show the people respect. Don’t touch the nation’s will. Don’t cheat — compete fairly. But Erdogan is closing his ears to these voices,” he wrote.
“This is not about Ekrem Imamoglu, it’s about our country... It is about justice, democracy and freedom,” he said, as the crowd roared back: “Rights! Law! Justice!“
“Everywhere is Taksim, resistance is everywhere!” they chanted, referring to Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square, site of the last massive wave of protests in 2013.
The last major demonstration called by CHP was Tuesday ahead of Saturday’s big rally, although students have continued to protest throughout the week.
Speaking to French newspaper Le Monde, Ozel said there would be weekly rallies every Saturday in different cities across Turkiye as well as a weekly Wednesday night demo in Istanbul.
“If we don’t stop this attempted coup, it will mean the end of the ballot box,” he said.
“I joined the rallies outside City Hall for four days together with university students. I told them not to give in,” protester Cafer Sungur, 78, told AFP.
“There is no other way than to keep fighting,” he said.
“I was jailed in the 1970s but back then there was justice. Today we can’t talk about justice anymore.”
Student groups have kept up their own protests, most of them masked, in the face of a police crackdown that has seen nearly 2,000 people arrested.
The authorities have also cracked down on media coverage, arresting 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deporting a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arresting a Swedish reporter who flew into Istanbul to cover the unrest.
Eleven journalists were freed Thursday, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgul.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin was jailed on Friday, his employer Dagens ETC told AFP.
Reporters Without Borders’ Turkiye representative Erol Onderoglu said Medin had been charged with “insulting the president” — a charge often use to silence Erdogan’s critics.
“The judicial pressure systematically brought to bear on local journalists for a long time is now being brought to bear on their foreign colleagues,” he told AFP, two days after the deportation of BBC correspondent Mark Lowen.
He said authorities had accused him of being “a threat to public order.”
Baris Altintas, co-director of MLSA, a legal NGO helping many of the detainees, told AFP the authorities “seem to be very determined to limit coverage of the protests.
“We fear the crackdown on the press will not only continue but increase,” she said.
Though Police used pepper spray, plastic pellets and water cannon against protesters in Turkiye’s capital , potentially reigniting tensions after two days of relative calm in the country’s biggest anti-government protests in over a decade.More than 2000 activist were detained
Imamoglu’s detention on March 19 has also prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.
The rally, which begins at 0900 GMT in Maltepe on the Asian side of Istanbul, is the first such CHP-led gathering since Tuesday and comes on the eve of the Eid Al-Fitr celebration marking the end of Ramadan, which starts Sunday.
Widely seen as the only Turkish politician capable of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as the CHP’s candidate for the 2028 presidential race on the day he was jailed.
“Imamoglu’s candidacy for president is the beginning of a journey that will guarantee justice and the nation’s sovereignty. Let’s go to Maltepe.. and start our march to power together!” CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said on X.
The protests over his arrest quickly spread across Turkiye, with vast crowds joining mass nightly rallies outside Istanbul City Hall called by the CHP, that often degenerated into running battles with riot police.
Although the last such rally was Tuesday, student groups have kept up their own protests, most of them masked despite a police crackdown that has seen nearly 2,000 people arrested.
Among them were 20 minors who were arrested between March 22-25, of whom seven remained in custody, the Istanbul Bar Association said Friday.
In Istanbul, at least 511 students were detained, many in predawn raids, of whom 275 were jailed, lawyer Ferhat Guzel told AFP, while admitting that the number was “probably much higher.”
The authorities have also cracked down on media coverage, arresting 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deporting a BBC correspondent and arresting a Swedish reporter who flew into Istanbul to cover the unrest.
Although 11 journalists were freed Thursday, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, two more were detained on Friday as was Imamoglu’s lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan, who was later granted conditional release.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who flew into Turkiye on Thursday to cover the demonstrations, was jailed on Friday, his employer Dagens ETC told AFP, saying it was not immediately clear what the charges were.
Unconfirmed reports in the Turkish media said Medin was being held for “insulting the president” and belonging to a “terror organization.”
“I know that these accusations are false, 100 percent false,” Dagens ETC’s editor-in-chief Andreas Gustavsson wrote on X account.
In a post on social media, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said Stockholm was taking his arrest “seriously.”
Turkish authorities held BBC journalist Mark Lowen for 17 hours on Wednesday before deporting him on the grounds he posed “a threat to public order,” the broadcaster said.
Turkiye’s communications directorate put his deportation down to “a lack of accreditation.”
Baris Altintas, co-director of MLSA, the legal NGO helping many of the detainees, told AFP the authorities “seem to be very determined on limiting coverage of the protests.
“As such, we fear that the crackdown on the press will not only continue but also increase.”
Police used pepper spray, plastic pellets and water cannon against protesters in Turkiye’s capital early Thursday, potentially reigniting tensions after two days of relative calm in the country’s biggest anti-government protests in over a decade.
The demonstrations began last week following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a key rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Imamoglu, jailed on corruption charges many see as politically motivated, is also accused of supporting terrorism. The government insists the judiciary is independent, but critics say the evidence is based on secret witnesses and lacks credibility.
Early Thursday, student demonstrators tried to march and gathered to read a statement near the gates at Middle East Technical University, pro-opposition broadcaster Halk TV and local media reported. They were met by security forces who deployed pepper spray, water cannon and plastic pellets. A standoff ensued where the students hid behind a barricade of dumpsters until the police charged to detain them.
Melih Meric, a legislator with the Republican People’s Party or CHP, was seen soaked with water and suffering from pepper spray exposure. “My student friends only wanted to make a press statement, but the police strictly did not allow it, this is the result,” Meric said in social media videos.
Ozgur Ozel, the leader of party to which Imamoglu belongs, had promised that lawmakers would stand alongside protesters in the hope of lowering tensions. He also warned Tuesday that if the police provoked demonstrators he would “make a call for 500,000 people to (come to) the place that will disturb” the authorities the most.