The opposition in Turkey has risen up following the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, describing it as a coup orchestrated by president Erdogan.
The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested on the morning of Wednesday 19 March. The prominent member of the Republican People's Party (Chp) was taken into custody along with around a hundred other people, including some of his collaborators, colleagues and journalists, as part of an operation carried out by police on the orders of the prosecutor's office of the Turkish metropolis. The charges brought against the mayor are particularly serious: they range from fraud to bid-rigging, through corruption and aiding and abetting a political movement considered terrorist by Turkish authorities, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Pkk).
The arrest was confirmed by Imamoglu himself, who in a video posted on X described numerous officers who had shown up at his home to take him away. According to the Chp, the mayor was then taken to central police headquarters. The political movement denounced the episode as a "coup" aimed at preventing the people of Turkey from being able to choose their next president.
Imamoglu – who has been elected to lead Istanbul's city hall twice – had in fact recently expressed his intention to run in the presidential elections, scheduled for 2028. And problems had immediately begun to mount: in order to stand as a candidate it is necessary to hold a university degree, which the mayor had obtained in Cyprus in the early 1990s – yet Istanbul University had just days earlier revoked its recognition.
This has fuelled suspicions that the arrest may have been driven above all by political motivations. Thousands of people gathered, Turkish flags in hand, in front of city hall chanting slogans against Erdogan and in support of Imamoglu. The Chp president, Özgür Özel, addressed the crowd from the roof of a bus: "What we are witnessing is an attempted coup. There is no corruption, no terrorist group. The mayor's only crime is having won the hearts of the people. His only crime is that he will be the next president."
Also alarming is the news that 37 people were arrested for sharing messages of solidarity with Imamoglu on social media, deemed "provocative" by the authorities. The interior ministry in Ankara itself, Ali Yerlikaya, explained that 261 accounts have been placed under scrutiny in this regard. Despite this, the Chp has called for a rally on 23 March, declaring it will be "the beginning of the Turkish spring".
The affair immediately sparked numerous reactions at the international level. The German foreign ministry described the arrest as "a serious setback for democracy", one that "is part of a series of judicial pressures endured by the mayor of Istanbul". The spokesperson for the US State Department, Tammy Bruce, called on Turkey "to respect human rights and to govern its country appropriately". The government of Paris then expressed "deep concern" over a matter that could have "serious consequences for Turkish democracy".
A group of European mayors has also launched an appeal for the immediate release of Imamoglu. Joining the mayors of Paris, Amsterdam and Barcelona was also the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri. The document condemns the arrest and denounces what is described as an arbitrary detention and a violation of democratic principles.
