Erdogan says people shouldn’t protest the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul

After the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, which led to some of the biggest acts of civil disobedience in more than a decade, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would not stand for violence on the streets or public disturbances.
“We won’t stand for public order being broken.” “We will not give up on vandalism, just like we have never given up on street terrorism,” Erdogan, 71, told a crowd in Ankara, the capital.

The warning came after two days of protests by tens of thousands of people in Istanbul, Ankara, and other places, including on college campuses, which led to some fights. Police used a water cannon to break up some groups and closed off the streets.
Later on Friday, there will be more protests, and things could get worse over the weekend, when a court is likely to officially arrest Imamoglu, who is Erdogan’s top political rival, and polls indicate that he is ahead of him.

Arresting someone could also hasten the three-day selloff of Turkish assets, which prompted the central bank to intervene to safeguard the currency. After being arrested on Wednesday, Imamoglu, 54, was charged with graft and helping a terrorist group. His biggest opponent, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), called the move political and told supporters to hold legal protests.

World leaders view the arrest as a sign of Turkey’s loss of democracy.
Trump stated that resorting to the streets was an unproductive approach. “Defending theft, looting, breaking the law, and fraud in the streets instead of the courts is very careless,” he stated. A four-day ban was put in place by the government after the arrest, and they said that 53 people were arrested during protests on Thursday.

POLICE ACTION AND PROTESTS

Turkey has limited civil disobedience since the national Gezi Park protests against the government in 2013. One of the main steps toward autocracy during Erdogan’s 22-year rule was the violent state crackdown that followed these protests. Imamoglu, the two-term mayor of Turkey’s biggest city, was arrested at the end of a months-long crackdown on opposition leaders that some say is meant to hurt their chances of getting elected.
The government says the charges are false and that the courts are separate from the government.

Ozgur Ozel, the leader of the CHP, said that Erdogan is afraid of street protests. He also said that the bans on demonstrations were illegal and encouraged people to take to the streets calmly to protect their voting rights. If you would rather not hurt the cops, break down those barriers and take to the streets and squares, he said.

The CHP is going to name Imamoglu as its presidential candidate for the next election on Sunday. The party has asked people who aren’t members of the party to vote to generate more public opposition. The next election is supposed to happen in 2028, but if Erdogan wants to run again, the government needs to move the date up.

To avoid more legal problems, Ozel said that the CHP would hold an extra congress on April 6 to stop the government from naming an outside trustee to the party. Ankara’s prosecutor had already started looking into what they said were wrongdoings during the country’s last congress in 2023.

FOOLISH ECONOMIC

The arrest had a big effect on Turkey’s financial markets. Investors were worried that the rule of law was being weakened, which caused the lira and bonds to fall sharply. On Friday, Istanbul shares fell 8 percent.

It was a surprise when the central bank raised the overnight rate. On Wednesday, they spent about $10 billion in foreign funds to stabilize the currency, which had declined by 12 percent to an all-time low that day. Last month’s inflation rate was 39%.

In a talk with Reuters, Ozel said that the CHP would fight any efforts to kick him and other party leaders out of the municipal offices where they have been living since Imamoglu was arrested and where the protests are taking place.

Because the mayor is being charged with helping the illegal Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey and its Western partners consider a terrorist group, someone chosen by the government could take his place.

The revocation of Imamoglu’s college degree led to his arrest. Should this decision stand, it would prevent him from running for president, as the constitution mandates a four-year degree for candidates.