Thousands take to streets in defence of Turkey's jailed opposition leader
- 29 March, 15:17
Turkey’s opposition staged a rally on Saturday for a sevenths night of protests in Istanbul in support of detained mayor of city Ekrem Imamoglu.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters participated in the rally organized by the opposition Republican People’s party (CHP) in the outskirts of Istanbul. CHP leader Ozgur Ozel claimed 2.2 million people attended the protest, although media organizations, including AFP were unable to confirm this figure.
"Are you ready for a big rally in a large square in Istanbul on Saturday?" Ozgur Ozel told crowds in Istanbul. "To support Imamoglu, to object to his arrest, to object to the detention of each of our mayors. To demand transparent, open, live broadcast trials, to say that we have had enough and we want early elections."
Addressing the protesters, Özel also slammed the government’s jailing of 1,400 people, including students, journalists and lawyers since the outbreak of the protests in support of Ekremoglu. “They’ve detained hundreds of our children, thousands of our youths … arrested hundreds of them,” Ozel told the crowds. “They only had one goal in mind: to intimidate them, terrify them, make sure they never go out again,” he added.
The CHP leader called for the release of both Imamoglu and jailed former presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtash, stressing that “In Turkey we envision presidential candidates will not be imprisoned.”
Earlier this week, Ozel challenged the government to broadcast live the trial of Imamoglu who was detained on March 19 on corruption charges. “Hey [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, if you have this much courage, broadcast the conspiracy cases you set up against Ekrem Imamoglu on TRT. Do you have the courage?" Ozel said while addressing the crowd.
Imamoglu is seen as the main rival of Erdogan who has held office in Turkey for 22 years as both prime minister and president and whose term is due to expire in 2028.
