The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) held another large rally last night in the Kartal district on the Asian coast of Istanbul against the arrests and removal of CHP mayors led by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, BTA reports.
According to information from the newspaper “Birgun” The rally, which took place outdoors in the central square of Kartal under the slogan “The Nation Stands Its Will”, was attended by tens of thousands of citizens.
The demonstrators carried banners and posters with the inscriptions “Freedom for Mayors”, ”Imamoğlu President” and chanted “Either together or no one”, “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism”.
This was the 37th rally that the NRP has been holding since March 23 this year. in different neighborhoods of the metropolis and in the country, writes the Anka news agency.
A message was read at the rally by the former mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, who is under arrest in Silivri prison on corruption charges, but despite the past four months, he has not been officially charged.
“The HDP with its mayors, deputies and institutional structure is under illegal siege. Because the HDP is the unifying force of those who want democracy and justice. Therefore, their real fear is the nation, the will of the people. Together we will put an end to this unjust system created for the benefit of a handful of people,” Imamoglu said, as quoted by Halk TV.
In his speech at the rally, the leader of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) Özgür Özel emphasized that “despite the darkness, despite the arrests and despite the fact that the aim is to intimidate us, to destroy us, we will not retreat, we will continue the struggle side by side. No one has the right to push the country to the abyss, nor to keep our mayors, led by Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is a presidential candidate of 20 million people, in prison without trial and sentence,” Özel said.
The opposition leader called on the government to make an interim increase in the salaries of workers due to inflation. He also called for Education Minister Yusuf Tekin to be held criminally liable for allegations of fraud in the high school entrance exams held on June 15th of this year.
According to information in the Turkish media, a total of 963,142 students took the exams. 719 students received excellent grades - double the number last year, when the number was 352. The answers were allegedly sent via the mobile application WhatsApp to parents close to the government.
The rally lasted nearly two hours under tight security measures by the police, including the deployment of armored Toma vehicles.
The rally in Kartal is the first that the opposition HDP has held on the Asian side of Istanbul, in a series of rallies that began in March with demands for the freedom of Imaloglu, as well as all those unjustly detained, and for early elections.
The mayor of Kartal, Gökhan Yüksel, who was elected to a second term in office by the HDP last year, also participated in last night's rally.
Kartal is a district located on the coast of the Sea of Marmara, with a population of about half a million. Some of the residents are Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria in the recent and more distant past. Kartal is home to the largest expatriate community on the Asian coast of the metropolis.
Over 150 mayors of the opposition HDP and its members have been arrested. The wave of arrests began in March with the detention and removal from office of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a popular politician and main rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Nevertheless, the Republican People's Party nominated him as a candidate for president. The next regular presidential elections are due in 2028.