{"id":422287,"date":"2025-03-24T16:36:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/03\/24\/turchia-imamoglu-arresti-proteste-erdogan\/"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:10:47","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T16:10:47","slug":"turkey-thousands-take-to-the-streets-against-erdogan-more-than-1100-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/24\/turkey-thousands-take-to-the-streets-against-erdogan-more-than-1100-arrested\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey, thousands take to the streets against Erdogan, more than 1100 arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – In Turkey, it is the fifth day of protests<\/strong> since Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamo\u011flu<\/strong>, a Republican People’s Party (CHP) member and leading opponent of President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan<\/strong>, was arrested <\/a> along with a hundred other people by Turkish police forces on corruption charges last March 19.<\/p>\n

In 55 of the country’s 81 provinces, numerous Turkish citizens, most of them\u00a0students<\/strong>, took to the streets to demonstrate against the arrest, especially in\u00a0Istanbul<\/strong>, where yesterday (March 23), tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the city’s city hall,<\/span>\u00a0after the court validated the charges brought against its first citizen. There have been numerous clashes between protesters and police<\/strong> in riot gear, who employed water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.<\/p>\n

Particularly violent<\/strong> incidents have been filmed and broadcast from Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir, and\u00a0the Turkish Interior Ministry reported this morning (March 24) in a post<\/a> on X that 1,133 people have been arrested<\/strong> since the protests began. The CEO of X, Elon Musk<\/strong>, agreed to government demands and suspended dozens of university students’ accounts using the platform to call for protests. The\u00a0Turkish trade union TGS reports<\/a> that at least nine journalists<\/strong> involved in covering last night’s protests were arrested in Izmir. NGO Mlsa<\/a> also reports that\u00a0police physically\u00a0assaulted<\/strong>\u00a0more than 20 journalists<\/span>\u00a0during demonstrations over the past four days. Despite the protests, Imamo\u011flu’s party has urged the citizens of Turkey to cast their votes in the primary elections<\/strong> for the 2028 presidential election, where the mayor, the only candidate for the CHP, has garnered more than 15 million votes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Reporters follow the demonstrations (photo: Mlsa, official X profile)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to Turkey, the arrest also drew significant reactions in Germany<\/strong> (home to some three million people of Turkish origin): 1,300 people marched in Berlin as a sign of solidarity.\u00a0German Chancellor\u00a0Olaf Scholz<\/strong>\u00a0has\u00a0defined<\/a>\u00a0the detention of Istanbul’s mayor as “depressing for democracy in Turkey,” stressing the negative impact the decision will have on relations between Europe and the Mediterranean country.<\/span>\u00a0Greek government<\/strong> spokesman Pavlos Marinakis, regarding the summit meeting scheduled for this April and aimed at mending the historically strained relations between the two countries bordering the Aegean Sea, said this morning that it is now “unlikely that (the summit) will take place in the immediate future.”<\/p>\n

The European Commission<\/strong>, which has intensified relations\u00a0and\u00a0talks<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/span>with Ankara in recent weeks, recalling the country’s EU accession process, has not condemned the accusations<\/strong>\u00a0against Imamo\u011flu. However, at a press conference, Commission\u00a0spokesperson<\/strong>\u00a0Guillaume Mercier<\/span>\u00a0raised\u00a0<\/a>the<\/span>\u00a0issue of Turkey’s adherence to the principles of democracy: “As a member of the Council of Europe and an EU candidate, Turkey must uphold democratic values. The rights<\/strong> of elected officials, as much as the rights to peaceful demonstrations,\u00a0must be fully respected<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Ciar\u00e1n Cuffe<\/strong>, co-chair of the European Green Party, stated: \u201cThe EU must take a firm stance against Erdo\u011fan<\/strong>\u2019s brutal crackdown on peaceful protest. It is time to end the political persecution, police violence, and massive suppression of press freedom. We call on EU Vice-President Kaja Kallas<\/strong> to pick up the phone to President Erdo\u011fan<\/b> and tell him to release all those unlawfully arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Demonstrations across the country against the detention of Istambul Mayor Ekrem Imamo\u011flu. Erdogan’s rival won 15 million votes in the primary for the 2028 presidential race. EU Commission spokesman Mercier: “Rights must be respected.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7883,"featured_media":422257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[25871,30813,30759,26718,30760,29544,26746],"class_list":["post-422287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-manifestations-en","tag-ekrem-imamoglu-en","tag-greece-en","tag-istanbul-en","tag-recep-tayyp-erdogan-en","tag-turkey-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422287"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422295,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422287\/revisions\/422295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}