Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoguru was scheduled to be voted Sunday’s vote as Republican People’s Party (CHP) 2028 presidential candidate.
In response to his arrest, Sunday night saw the worst fears the country has seen for over a decade surge – the BBC reported that protesters were fired with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Imamoguru said the allegations against him were politically motivated. “I will never bow,” he wrote to X before being taken into custody.
Erdogan condemned the demonstrations, accusing the CHP of “disturbing peace and polarizing our people.”
The crowds were able to gather for a fifth night near Istanbul city hall by Sunday evening, waving Turkish flags and chanting in front of a riot police line.
Officers were seen firing water cannons at some protesters and using pepper spray.
Imamoguru’s wife, Direk Kaya Imamoguru, spoke to a large crowd outside the city hall and told the protesters that the “fraud” her husband faced “hastened a chord with all his conscience.”
The demonstrations in response to Imamoguru’s arrest are the biggest the country has seen since the 2013 GEZI protest that began in Istanbul over the demolition of a local park.
MA/PR