Turkiye’s opposition on Sunday worked to maintain the impulse of the protest movement caused by the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul after a giant weekend rally, with a Swedish reporter the last detainee in a repression of the government.
The arrest of March 19 of the mayor of the opposition of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, due to corruption charges, their supporters say they are false, caused the most important anti -government protests in Turkiye in more than a decade, in a great test for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
After more than a week of night street protests, the Republican Party of the People (CHP) of Imamogu mobilized hundreds of thousands of people on Saturday for a giant demonstration in Istanbul asking for the launch of Imamoglu, seen as the candidate with the best opportunity to defeat Erdogan in the bowling box after almost almost a quarter of power.
With Turkiye entering several days of holidays that mark the end of the month of Muslim fasting of Ramadan, the opposition has promised to maintain the protest movement while changing tactics to more focused events.
The chp party leader, Ozgur Ozel, a former pharmacist who has intervened as the main public flag of the match while Imamoglu languishes in Silivri’s prison in Istanbul, on Saturday announced that the protests would take place in a different of the 81 provinces of Turkiye every weekend and a different district of Istanbul every Wednesday.
‘Force to defeat it’
On Sunday, he released a campaign to gather signatures for a request that requested the launch of Imamogl and the early elections, starting the trip on the trip in the now suspended Black Sea region in the mayor in the east of Turkiye.
“God is my witness that the crime of Ekrem Imamoglu is to be Tayyip Erdogan’s rival,” Ozel said.
“The reason why Imamoglu was thrown into jail is that he defeated Mr. Tayyip in the past,” he said, referring to how Imamoglu hit the ruling candidates of the party in the 2019 and 2024 elections for the mayor of Istanbul, a post Erdogan.
“And he (Imamoglu) has the strength and wisdom to defeat him (Erdogan) in the future,” Ozel added.
The Government has responded to protests with a repression that has bothered groups of allies and rights of NATO members, with dozens of young people who spend vacations after bars, detained journalists and foreign reporters retained or deported.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who works for the Dagens newspaper, etc., was arrested upon arrival in Turkiye to cover the protests on Thursday. He is arrested for charges related to terror and “insulting the president,” said the Turkish presidency.
The editor of his chief newspaper, Andreas Gustavsson, described the accusations as “absurd”, revealing AFP that “practicing journalism should not be a crime.”
Turkish authorities have also deported BBC The journalist Mark Lowen, who had been covering the protests, after keeping it for 17 hours on Wednesday, saying that he represented “a threat to public order,” said the station.
AFP Photographer Yasin Akgul was arrested Monday morning in a dawn raid.
It was released on Thursday.
‘They are increasing’
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Thursday that 1,879 people had been arrested in relation to protests since March 19, with 260 of them arrested waiting for trial.
“You cannot prosper with oppression, stop oppressing young children in this country,” Ozel said in a message to the authorities.
Father Sinan Karahan said that for the first time he would spend the holidays without his 22 -year -old son, a university student, who was sent to Silivri’s prison after being arrested in an Istanbul protest.
“These children were born when this party was in power and grew under this government. They are not happy with their practices and are increasing,” he told AFPsaying that he had visited his son in prison on Friday and had good health.
Erdogan has previously described the demonstrations “Street terror”. The authorities have used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse protesters.
Marta Kos, an EU extension commissioner, which Turkiye still wants to join officially, said that the arrests and deportations of journalists go against the “commitments and democratic tradition” of Turkiye.
“The freedom of assembly is a fundamental right,” the Turkish authorities have committed themselves in their search to join the block, he added.
