Senior officials from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party will visit jailed İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and several imprisoned politicians on Thursday, in a highly symbolic move amid mounting concerns over political repression in the country.
Tülay Hatimoğulları and Tuncer Bakırhan, co-chairs of the DEM Party, along with party deputy chair Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki, are scheduled to begin their visits at İstanbul’s Silivri Prison in the morning and continue throughout the day.
The delegation will meet with key figures including İmamoğlu, the opposition’s former presidential candidate and İstanbul’s mayor; Bekir Kaya, former co-mayor of Van (Wan); Ahmet Özer, mayor of Esenyurt; Resul Emrah Şahan, mayor of Şişli; Can Atalay, MP from the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP); and political prisoners Ercüment Akdeniz, Halil Aksoy, Nesimi Aday, and Ahmet Saymadi.
The visit highlights DEM Party’s push to rally political opposition ahead of possible future elections and to draw attention to the widespread imprisonment of political figures in Turkey. İmamoğlu’s detention remains one of the most controversial cases, seen by critics as an attack on democratic opposition.
