Thousands protest arrest of Istanbul mayor (VIDEOS)

Thousands of people took to the streets of Istanbul on Wednesday to decry the arrest of the city's mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, who is viewed as the main political rival to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in elections scheduled for 2028.

Imamoglu, one of the key figures in the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was among a hundred people detained earlier in the day on charges of corruption and alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara. The mayor was taken into custody just days before his official nomination as CHP’s presidential candidate.

Following Imamoglu’s arrest, the Turkish authorities imposed a four-day ban on demonstrations, closed down several roads in Istanbul and put restrictions on social media platforms.

However, it did not prevent protesters from taking to the streets, as huge crowds gathered outside Istanbul's police headquarters, City Hall, the main office of the Republican People's Party, and other locations.

The demonstrators carried Turkish national flags and portraits of Ekrem, chanting anti-government slogans and demanding the mayor’s release.

“We came here to support the mayor. They arrested him unjustly,” one of the people in the crowd told Reuters. Another demonstrator complained to AFP that “we are living in a dictatorship.”

There have been reports of minor clashes between the protesters and riot police, with Reuters publishing a video showing the officers using pepper spray to disperse a crowd outside Istanbul University.

Imamoglu wrote in a post on X before his arrest that “the will of the people cannot be silenced through intimidation or unlawful acts,” vowing to continue to “fight for fundamental rights and freedoms.”

During a press conference, CHP’s leader Ozgur Ozel called the mayor’s detention “a coup” and accused Erdogan of being afraid to lose to Imamoglu in the election.

Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said later that Ozel’s comments were “extremely dangerous and incorrect.”

The country’s justice system is “impartial and independent” and because of this “linking investigations and cases initiated by the judiciary to our president is, at best, presumptuous and inappropriate,” the minister insisted.