The police have arrested more than 1,100 people, authorities said on Monday, including journalists, since the arrest of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan caused some of the worst disturbances of Türkiye in years.
The demonstrations began in Istanbul after the arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu last week and since then they have extended to more than 55 of the 81 provinces of Türkiye, causing confrontations with the riot police and the international condition.
The popular 53 -year -old player has been widely seen as the only politician who could defeat the Turkey leader, Erdogan, at the polls.
In just four days he went from being the mayor of Istanbul, a position that launched the political rise of Erdogan decades before, to be arrested, questioned, imprisoned and stripped of the mayor’s office as a result of an investigation of graft and terror.
On Sunday, he was overwhelmingly voted as the CHP candidate for the main opposition for the 2028 presidential race, with the vote, which opened beyond the 1.7 million members of the party, attracting 15 million votes.
A party spokesman confirmed his election as a party candidate on Monday.
The observers said it was the imminent primary that triggered the movement against Imamoglu, Erdogan’s main political rival who has dominated Turkey’s policy since 2003, first as prime minister and then as president.
His imprisonment attracted a strong conviction of Germany, which called him “totally unacceptable.”
Early Monday, the police arrested 10 Turkish journalists at home, including a AFP Photographer, “to cover the protests,” said the MLSA Rights Group in a statement.
He said that most of them covered the mass demonstrations outside the City Council, where tens of thousands recovered on Sunday night, a movement denounced by Imamoglu’s wife.
“What is being done to the members of the press and journalists is a matter of freedom. None of us can remain silent about this,” Dilek Kaya Imamoglu wrote in X.
Police have arrested more than 1,133 people for “illegal activities” since the protests began on Wednesday, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
Detained lawyers
As on the previous nights, Sunday’s meeting, the fifth mass protest, descended fierce clashes with seen disturbances kicking and hitting people in Istanbul and other places, in other places, AFP The correspondents said.
There was no immediate word on night arrests, but Izmir’s lawyer association in the Western coastal city said the police had arrested two local lawyers, including their former boss, who represented protesters.
The early hours of Monday, the governor of Istanbul Davut Gul accused the protesters of “harmful mosques and cemeteries,” warning: “Any attempt to interrupt public order will not be tolerated,” he wrote in X.
While they send it to Silivri’s prison on the Western outskirts of megachability, Imamoglu had denounced judicial movements against him as a “political execution without trial.”
In a later message from the prison, when tens of thousands recovered for a fifth night, a challenging tone rang.
“I wear a white shirt that you can’t stain. I have a strong arm that you can’t twist. I will not move an inch. I will win this war,” he said in the message transmitted by his lawyers.
During Sunday, millions voted in the highly symbolic primaries of the CHP, which effectively became a de facto referendum.
“Of a total of 15 million votes, 13,211,000 are solidarity votes,” said the City Council, referring to the number of tickets cast by those who were not members of CHP.
Given the mass protests, the authorities of Türkiye sought to close more than 700 accounts in X, the online platform said on Sunday.
“We oppose multiple judicial orders of the Turkish Information and Communication Technology Authority to block more than 700 news organizations accounts, journalists, political figures, students and others within Turkiye,” said his communications team in a statement.
