Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators supporting democracy have returned to the streets of Istanbul, Türkiye, to support the imprisoned mayor of the city.
Ekrem Imamoglu, who is seen as the main political rival of the President of Türkiye, Tayyip Erdogan, was arrested on charges of corruption last week, which sparked mass protests.
He denies the charges and claims that his arrest is politically driven. Imamoglu is currently being held in solitary confinement in a high security prison on the outskirts of Istanbul.
Saturday crowds were very large, they poured out from the protest site to a neighboring garden. The head of the Republican People's Party in Imamoglu (CHP) addressed the demonstrators and read a letter from the prison.
“I have no fear, you are behind me, beside me. I have no fear because the nation is united. The nation is united against injustice,” Reuters reported that the message. He was accompanied by a video created from IMamoglu, reading his message from the prison cell.
The wife of Imamoglu, Delk, was also in protest, and told the crowd: “We will continue to fight and fight.”
It was collected under a mysterious blue sky, and the demonstrators waved the red and white of Türkiye flags and chanted: “Rights, law, justice!”
IMamoglu has worked as the mayor of Istanbul since 2019 and won a resounding victory in the municipal elections last year.
He is widely seen as the only Turkish politician who is able to challenge Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party – also known as AK – in the ballot box.
A series of huge protests have been dropped in democracy since the arrest of IMamoglu earlier this month.
They also raised fears that you will not face a free and fair trial when his case is heard in court.
The government denied the arrest of Imamoglu had political motives and insists that Turkish courts are completely independent.
Erdogan claimed that the protests amount to “street terrorism”Accusing the demonstrators of attacking the police and damaging public property.
On some occasions, riot police attempted to disperse this protest using tear gas and rubber bullets.
