Tens of thousands of people gathered today in Constantinoplein the presence of all its leaders Turkish opposition to express their support for the mayor of the city, Mr. Ekrem Imamoglusentenced yesterday to imprisonment and deprivation of civil rights.

“They removed your votes,” Imamoglu told the crowd gathered in front of the town hall, unafraid of the rain. “This is not my court, but a court of justice and impartiality,” he insisted, assuring that he “is not at all afraid of this illegal decision.”

Turkey is at a crossroads.

“We are not afraid! I have no judges to defend me, but I have 16 million inhabitants of Constantinople and our people with me,” he continued, assuring his supporters that “no matter how cruel the repressions are, we will dismantle them.”

Turkey is at a crossroads and the opposition bloc will defeat Erdogan “with common sense and for the sake of our common future,” he added.

“Everything will be fine!” he concluded, echoing the slogan of his victorious 2019 mayoral campaign.

This is the first time the six opposition parties have taken part in a joint public mobilization since the formation of their joint platform to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the largest party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and a possible presidential candidate for the united opposition, denounced the “blow to national justice” and vowed “not to budge an inch.”

Axener: “Long live freedom, down with tyranny!”

“Long live freedom, down with tyranny,” Good Party leader Meral Aksener told the gathering, while Democratic Party chairman Gultekin Visal said a “great struggle against the tyrant” was starting in 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 coast.

Imamoglu, 52, a rising star on 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 was accused of “insulting” members of the electoral commission by 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 came out victorious by a wide margin.

Erdogan did not make any statements about Imamoglu’s verdict. But his close associate, the leader of the nationalist MHP party, Devlet Bahceli, said that “everyone should respect the decision of justice, whether he likes it or not.”

A Metropoll poll today shows that even among AKP supporters, Imamoglu’s conviction is unconvincing, with 28% of them considering it a “political case” and only 22% believing it was a defamation lawsuit.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters, AFP, dpa.}