The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu has been remanded in custody in Istanbul, after he was detained on 19 March along with 92 others as part of an investigation by Istanbul Chief State Prosecution, on charges ranging from corruption to alleged links to terrorism.
İmamoğlu and the others were detained in a series of dawn raids earlier this week, sparking the largest wave of street demonstrations in Turkey in more than a decade, with over a million people taking to the streets across Turkey.
The mayor was formally arrested early on Sunday, and remanded in custody on charges of corruption. He also faces the lesser charge of ‘urban consensus’ (collaboration between opposition parties around urban seats in the local elections). İmamoğlu is believed by many to be a real threat to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the next general elections,
The first reaction from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), of which İmamoğlu is a member, came from the Party’s Group Deputy Chairman Ali Mahir Başarır, who said, “They will pay for this. They will not darken these people’s future.”
Başarır alleged that the decision for the arrests had been made even as CHP members were voting for him as their presidential candidate for the general election, and he expressed his infuriation regarding the current political situation in Turkey: “Yesterday, it was not possible to broadcast live in this country. Televisions were blacked out, politicians were arrested. [Even] Kenan Evren did not do this,” he said, referring to the leader of Turkey’s 1980 military coup.
