“They deleted your votes,” Imamoglu told the crowd that had gathered in front of the town hall, braving the rain.
Tens of thousands of people gathered today in Istanbul, in the presence of all the leaders of the Turkish opposition, to express their support for the mayor of the city, Ekrem Imamoglu, who was sentenced yesterday to a prison sentence and deprivation of his political rights.
“Your votes were deletedImamoglu said to the crowd that had gathered in front of the town hall, defying the rain.
“This is not my trial but the trial of justice and impartiality,” he insisted, assuring that he was “not at all afraid of this illegal decision».
“We are not afraid! I have no judges to protect me but I have with me 16 million people of Constantinople and our nation,” he continued, assuring his supporters that “no matter how shady the repression, we will dismantle it».
Turkey is at a crossroads and the opposition bloc will defeat Erdogan “with common sense and for our common future”he added.
“Everything will be fine!he concluded, repeating the slogan of his victorious election campaign for the city council in 2019.
This is the first time the six opposition parties have taken part in a joint public mobilization since forming their joint platform to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the largest party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and a possible joint opposition candidate for the presidency, denounced “a blow of justice to the nation” and promised that “he will not budge an inch».
“Long live freedom, down with tyranny“, the leader of the Good Party, Meral Aksener, told the crowd, while Gultekin Wisal, the president of the Democratic Party, said that “the great fight against the tyrant” starts from Istanbul today.
A demonstration involving several hundred people, according to Turkish media, took place simultaneously in Trabzon, the mayor’s hometown on the Black Sea.
The 52-year-old Imamoglu, the rising star of the Turkish political scene, is also considered a possible candidate for the presidency after he managed to win the 2019 municipal elections against the candidate of the ruling AKP party. He had been accused of “insulting” members of the Electoral Commission – calling them “idiots” – after they annulled his victory in the first municipal elections that year. The election was repeated three months later and he again emerged victorious, by a significant margin.
Erdogan did not make any statements about Imamoglu’s conviction. But his close ally, the leader of the nationalist MHP party Devlet Bakhceli, said that “everyone must respect a decision of justice, whether they like it or not.”
A poll by the Metropoll institute shows today that, even among AKP supporters, Imamoglu’s conviction is unconvincing: 28% of them consider it a “political case” and only 22% that it was a defamation trial .
RES-EMP
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
