Thousands of protesters returned to the streets of İstanbul on Tuesday after a week of the biggest protests to hit Turkey in over a decade, defying a crackdown that has seen almost 1,500 arrested including an Agence France-Presse journalist.
The demonstrations erupted after the arrest of the mayor of İstanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu, the main political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a move opposition supporters see as a blatant violation of the rule of law.
The authorities have hit back with a crackdown that has alarmed rights groups, with seven journalists who covered the protests remanded in custody by an İstanbul court on Tuesday.
Among them was AFP photographer Yasin Akgül, drawing a sharp rebuke from the Paris-based news agency.
“His imprisonment is unacceptable. This is why I am asking you to intervene as quickly as possible to obtain the rapid release of our journalist,” the agency’s CEO and chairman Fabrice Fries said in a letter to the Turkish presidency.
The court charged Akgül, 35, and the others with “taking part in illegal rallies and marches,” though Fries said Akgül was “not part of the protest” but only covering it as a journalist.
Media freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced the decision as “scandalous,” with its Turkey representative Erol Önderoğlu saying it “reflects a very serious situation in Turkey.”
‘Can’t express ourselves freely’
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Large crowds have defied a protest ban to hit the streets daily since the March 19 detention of İmamoğlu, with the unrest spreading across Turkey and prompting nightly clashes with security forces.
In the face of the biggest protests in Turkey since the 2013 Gezi uprising over the redevelopment of an İstanbul park, Erdoğan has remained defiant, denouncing the rallies as “street terror.”
“Those who spread terror in the streets and want to set fire to this country have nowhere to go. The path they have taken is a dead end,” Erdoğan, who has now ruled the NATO member for a quarter of a century, said on Tuesday.
But as he spoke thousands of students marched through the Şişli district of İstanbul, whose mayor Resul Emrah Şahan was jailed in the same case as İmamoğlu, heading for the district’s municipal headquarters.
They chanted “government, resign!” and waved flags and banners with slogans including “Tayyip resign!” as a large deployment of riot police watched, while people in apartments above bashed pots to show their approval.
Many had their faces covered with scarves or masks, and acknowledged they feared being identified by the police.
“We can’t express ourselves freely,” a student who gave her name as Nisa told AFP, saying she nonetheless joined the protest “to defend democracy.”
Separately, thousands also rallied for the seventh straight night in a protest organized by İmamoğlu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Saraçhane, home of the İstanbul city hall that İmamoğlu ran since 2019.
Girding for what could be a long standoff, CHP leader Özgür Özel called a mass rally for Saturday in İstanbul that he said would be the “largest open-air referendum in history” and would press for early elections.
“Are you ready for a big rally in a large square in İstanbul on Saturday to support İmamoğlu, to object to his arrest, to demand transparent, open trials, to say we have had enough and we want early elections?” Özel asked protesters, telling them the rally would be held in the vast Maltepe grounds on the Asian side of İstanbul.
In a possible change of tactics to focus efforts on Saturday’s rally, he said he would not call for another Saraçhane protest on Wednesday.
‘Dark time for democracy’
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With riot police using water cannon, pepper spray and rubber bullets against protesters, the Council of Europe denounced a “disproportionate” use of force while Human Rights Watch said it was a “dark time for democracy” in Turkey.
The United Nations also voiced alarm at Turkey’s use of mass detentions and its “unlawful blanket ban on protests,” urging the authorities to probe any unlawful use of force.
By Tuesday, police had detained 1,418 suspects for taking part in “illegal demonstrations,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X, warning there would be “no concessions” for those who “terrorize the streets.”
But Özel told the Saraçhane crowd: “We do not decrease in numbers with arrests — there will be even more of us.”
He added the extent of the crackdown was such that there was “no room left in İstanbul prisons.”
© Agence France-Presse