The Turkish authorities have arrested Hasan Mutlu, the mayor of the Baystampasa district, and 47 officials, formally on suspicion of corruption. Staatspersbureau Anadolu reports this on Saturday. Mutlu calls the accusations “shameful”, “politics” and “unfounded.” “I walk around with head and a pure conscience. I have nothing to hide,” writes he in a statement on X.
In the past six months, members of the largest opposition party Republican People’s Party (CHP) were arrested. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tries to put his political opponents offside in the run -up to the presidential election in 2028.
Such as Ekrem imamoglu. The suspended mayor of Istanbul and also Erdogans most important competitor, has been sitting since March – A few days before the opposition had to designate a presidential candidate – In prison. He would operate on behalf of the now -disarmed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and be guilty of money laundering. Tens of thousands of Turks then went on the street furiously and demanded in vain imamoglus release. In July, Imamoglu was sentenced to a prison sentence of one year and eight months for insulting and threatening the public prosecutor of Istanbul. The judge is still considering the alleged counterfeit of his university diploma. There is also an appeal against a previously demanded prison sentence of 2.5 years due to ‘criticism of government officials’. The case law in Turkey is not independent: Erdogan controls the judicial device.
The opposition protests. After the provincial chairman of the Social Democratic CHP in Istanbul, Özgür Çelik, was fired, CHP members barricaded the entrance of their party office in Istanbul a week ago to prevent the new party chairman Gürsel Tekin.
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