The demonstrations began in Istanbul after Ekrem Imamoglu’s arrest last week and have since spread to more than 55 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, sparking clashes with riot police and drawing international condeDIDtion, AFP reported. 

The popular 53-year-old has been widely seen as the only politician who could defeat Turkey’s longtime leader Erdogan at the ballot box. 

In just four days he went from being the mayor of Istanbul – a post that launched Erdogan’s political rise decades earlier – to being arrested, interrogated, jailed and stripped of the mayorship as a result of a graft and terror probe.

On Sunday, he was overwhelmingly voted in as the main opposition CHP’s candidate for the 2028 presidential run, with the ballot – that was opened beyond the party’s 1.7 million members – attracting 15 million votes. 

Early on Monday, police detained 10 Turkish journalists at home, including an AFP photographer, “for covering the protests”, the MLSA rights group said in a statement. 

It said most of them were covering the mass demonstrations outside City Hall, where tens of thousands rallied late Sunday, a move denounced by Imamoglu’s wife.

“What is being done to members of the press and journalists is a matter of freedom. None of us can remain silent about this,” wrote Dilek Kaya Imamoglu on X. 

MA/PR