DAILY protests have continued in Turkiye since the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19. While the government says it is simply following legal procedures, protesters and activists feel the mayor has been hauled up on trumped-up charges, as he poses a major electoral threat to the ruling AK Party. Mr Imamoglu, who belongs to the opposition CHP, has been detained on corruption charges, which he rejects, terming them “slander”. Thousands have been coming out daily across the country, but mainly in Istanbul, as the mayor’s arrest has charged up opponents of the ruling party, who say the economic situation has worsened and freedoms have been curtailed under the AKP’s rule. The ruling party has been in power for over two decades. President Recep Erdogan, meanwhile, has dismissed the protests as “street terror”. Nearly 1,900 people have been rounded up, including some journalists, while the Turkiye head of RSF has said the authorities are not letting the media report freely.

The current protests are the biggest Turkiye has seen since the 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations. The Turkish state needs to reassure its citizens as well as the international community that Mr Imamoglu will be able to defend himself fully in court, and that this is not a witch-hunt. While many have accused the AKP of increasingly authoritarian tendencies, the ruling party must ensure that the democratic process continues unhindered in Turkiye. The country has seen numerous military interventions in the past decades — the last coup attempt occurring in 2016 — and Mr Erdogan himself was arrested in 1999 as Istanbul mayor for reading a poem. All sections of the Turkish political spectrum — Islamists, secularists and others — must work within the bounds of the democratic process, and preserve the country’s hard-earned freedoms. Most of all, the constitutional order must be respected so that any adventurers thinking of subverting the political process are stopped in their tracks.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2025