More than a thousand people have been detained in the first five days of protests in Turkey over the detention and imprisonment of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, which have spread to several cities across the country including Ankara, Konya, Izmir and Eskişehir.
‘To date, a total of 1,418 suspects have been arrested in the illegal demonstrations held since 19 March 2025. Among those detained, individuals with links to 12 terrorist organisations were identified,’ said Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, as quoted by the Turkish media.
‘In these protests, 123 police officers were injured. The authorities have confiscated acid, stones, bats, pyrotechnic material, Molotov cocktails, axes and knives,’ said Yerlikaya, who promised ’zero tolerance’ against ‘any attempt to instigate violence in the streets and undermine public peace and security’, and called on the public to avoid falling for provocations or ‘any attempt to use our young people and our citizens for political ends’.
Following the arrest on 19 March of İmamoğlu as part of an investigation into various charges of corruption and collaboration with members of a terrorist organisation, a court ordered on Sunday 23 March that he be remanded in prison pending trial, where by law he could spend up to a maximum of 2 years in prison. That same Sunday, İmamoğlu was transferred to Silivri prison on the outskirts of the city, and hours later he was officially removed from the city’s metropolitan mayoralty, where the municipal assembly – dominated by his party, the CHP – will have to elect his replacement in a vote to be held tomorrow.
Erdoğan: ‘The opposition is not fit to govern’
For his part, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan again lashed out at the opposition for organising the protests, accusing the CHP party of inciting violence and seeking to destabilise the country to hide the cases of corruption in its municipalities as well as İmamoğlu’s legal problems.
‘This movement has evolved into pure violence,’ said the Turkish president, who questioned the Turkish opposition’s ability to govern because of its recent actions: “It is clear that the main opposition party cannot be trusted with the responsibility of running a state, let alone managing municipalities,” he said.
Erdoğan also insisted that the CHP party leaders resort to political attacks and street protests instead of facing accusations of corruption. ‘Instead of responding to allegations of bribery, embezzlement and misconduct, they have spent five days making the most shameful and legally unfounded statements in our political history,’ he concluded.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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