- Arrest the last movement to press the opposition.
- Ekrem Imamoglu seen as the greatest political rival for the 2028 elections.
- Police arrest 137 in alleged graft investigation in Izmir this week.
Turkiye arrested three opposition mayors more on Saturday as part of an investigation into the alleged graft, said officials of the main CHP of the opposition, denouncing it as a “political operation.”
The arrests early in the morning were the last movement aimed at elected officials of the Republican Popular Party (CHP) when the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exerts growing pressure on the party that won a great victory against his AKP in the local elections of 2024 and is increasing in the surveys.
An investigation into alleged graft were linked that resulted in the elimination in March of the powerful mayor of the opposition of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, whose jail caused mass protests in the worst street disturbances of Turkiye since 2013.
Imamoglu is Erdogan's biggest political rival and the CHP candidate for the 2028 presidential race.
Earlier this week, the police arrested 137 people as part of an investigation into alleged graft in the strength of the opposition of Izmir, the third city of Turkiye. They were still looking for others under the arrest of a prosecutor who appointed 157 people.
The last detainees were based in the south of Turkiye: mayor of the southern city of Adana, Zeydan Karalar, mayor of the tourist city of Antalya, Muhittin Bocek and the mayor of Adiyaman in the southeast, Abdurrahman Tutdere.
While they took him to a police car, a journalist asked Karalar why he was being arrested.
“Where there is an influential journalist or politician, they silence them,” he replied.
“In a system where the law is folded and balanced according to politics, where justice is applied to one group and ignores for another, no one should expect us to trust the rule of law or believe in justice,” Mansur Yavas wrote in X, mayor of the opposition of Ankara, the capital of Turkiye.
“We will not bow to injustice, illegality or political operations.”
The DeM Pro-Kurdo match, the third largest in the Parliament of Turkiye, also denounced the arrests in a strongly written statement.
“This persecution of elected officials must stop,” wrote the co -chair of the DEM, Tulay Hatimogullari, in X.
“Not respecting people's decisions at the polls and not recognizing people's will is causing deep divisions,” he wrote.
“These operations are not a solution, but block the path to a democratic Turk.”
M has been working in recent months in close collaboration with the Erdogan government to facilitate movements to finish the conflict of decades with the Kurds, facilitating the conversations that in May saw militants Kurds of PKK ending their struggle armed with blood in a conflict that cost almost 40,000 lives.
Saturday's arrests were the last in a large number of legal maneuvers aimed at CHP.
On Monday, an Ankara court began listening to a case against the party that involved accusations of purchase of votes in its 2023 leadership primaries that could end up annulling the election of the popular leader of CHP, Ozgur Ozel, who jumped to the prominence for his role in leading the protests of March.
Anadolu News The agency said that the mayors of Adana and Adiyaman were linked to a case opened by the Office of Prosecutors of the Prosecutors of Istanbul in alleged tender and bribes.
Police also arrested the deputy mayor of the Buyukcekmece district in Istanbul, Ahmet Sahin as part of the same investigation, said the Birgun news website.
The mayor of Antalya was arrested for a separate investigation launched by the main public prosecutor of the city of the resort on accusations of bribery, and the police also arrests his son, he said.
