A huge crowd of protesters gathered in Istanbul on Saturday for a mass demonstration against the arrest of opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu.
İmamoğlu was arrested last week on corruption charges and booted out of his office as Istanbul mayor. Widely viewed as the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, İmamoğlu was on Monday officially nominated as a presidential candidate.
His arrest has sparked a week of protests in the country. Turkish authorities have ramped up a crackdown against the opposition, locking up more than a thousand demonstrators and detaining journalists.
Özgür Özel, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) who organized Saturday’s demonstration, said on X that there were 2.2 million people in the crowd. Özel told French outlet Le Monde he planned to convene regular Saturday rallies across the country, with additional protests organized in Istanbul every Wednesday.
The European Commission this week urged Ankara to “uphold democratic values.”
