Always in solidarity with protesters in Turkey
Ekrem İmamoğlu is Mayor of Istanbul, who has won 4 elections against AKP and Erdoğan since 2014 and was elected in 2024 with 4.5 million votes, one of the highest vote shares in the history of Istanbul. Imamoğlu and his party became the first party nationwide in the 2024 local elections, and Erdoğan and his partners became a minority party. Imamoğlu has been harassed by the Erdoğan regime for years with investigations, and has been testifying in court almost every week due to lawfare and judicial harassment. Since he announced his intention to run as a candidate for the presidential nomination of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and to participate in the primaries, the scale of these attacks has increased and he has been openly threatened directly by Erdoğan.
Last week, first his university diploma, one of the constitutional requirements to be a presidential candidate, was annulled and then he was taken into custody the next morning. He was in custody for four days and arrested on “suspicion of fleeing” on completely baseless accusations. Ekrem İmamoğlu's only crime is that he is more popular than Erdoğan and ahead of him in the polls. This was demonstrated once again on Sunday when 15 million people voted for him in the CHP primaries. The imprisonment of the country's most popular politician on baseless accusations and preventing him from running in the elections has paved the way to an irreversible and complete dictatorship. For this reason, people have been protesting against this situation for 6 days in all cities of Turkey. In Istanbul alone, 1.5 million people have joined the protests. There has been horrific and disproportionate violence against the protesters, hundreds of people have been injured, more than a thousand protesters, journalists and leaders of civil society organizations have been detained.
The timing of all this is also interesting, as these operations began immediately after Erdoğan and Trump had a phone call, which Trump's special envoy described as “wonderful and transformative”, at the same time that Elon Musk was blocking hundreds of Twitter accounts of dissidents from Turkey, in line with Erdoğan's demands, and trying to silence the voices of dissidents. Investigations are growing, unions and other mayors are being investigated, and there is even talks of appointing trustees to the main opposition CHP party. The European Commission has deliberately avoided a strong reaction, von der Leyen called Erdoğan while Imamoğlu was still in custody and informed him about the EUCO conclusions and potential defense cooperation.
In the face of all this, millions of people are on the streets fighting for their freedom, democracy and future and trying to preserve the last shreds of democracy. We call on everyone to stand with İmamoğlu, with democracy in Turkey, with the protesters and help make their voices heard!
