Turkish police arrested 44 people Friday in the opposition stronghold of Istanbul, including the mayor of the central district of Beyoglu and several of his close advisers, the Anadolu news agency reported.
The latest wave of arrests, over alleged corruption, is part of a months-long crackdown targeting the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, considered the biggest political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was arrested in March and subsequently imprisoned.
His arrest sparked protests in the country on a scale not seen in more than a decade.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel wrote on X on Friday that, in “149 days, the judiciary has not managed to produce an indictment”.
“Because they only have slanderous accusations like ‘I heard that’,” he added.
Ozel called the wave of arrests “vengeance which aims to cover up the damage caused (to the country) by the AKP gang” of Erdogan, who has been in power since 2022.
In addition to Imamoglu and the mayor of Beyoglu, Inan Guney, nine of Istanbul’s 26 CHP district mayors have been arrested and imprisoned since October, most of them on corruption charges which they deny.
CHP mayors from a number of other cities have also been arrested.
According to analysts, the government is attempting to undermine the CHP, which emerged as the clear winner in local elections in the spring of 2024 at the expense of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.
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© Agence France-Presse
