A sea of crowd in Istanbul for Ekrem Imamoglu. Hundreds of thousands of people, 200,000 according to journalistic estimates, they poured into the Maltepe park, on the Asian bank of the city on the Bosphorus, to express solidarity with the mayor suspended from the assignment, after arrest for corruption. Milometric queues have been seen to access the area of the event while for the CHP, the largest opposition party of which Imamoglu is part, the participants have been over 2 million.
Music, slogans shouted by the stage and the red flags of the CHP filled Maltepe starting from the late morning while the crowd freed the area only after several hours. Imamoglu’s voice was transmitted by the stage thanks to a simulation created with artificial intelligence. In this way the text of a letter that the mayor raised by the assignment wrote in the prison of Silivri, on the outskirts of Istanbul, where he is locked up, was transmitted. “This nation has never folded to the great powers, will now bow to those who have stolen the national will?”, Imamoglu wrote in the letter, underlining that his arrest “is a national question, a question of justice, democracy, freedom, education and law”.
The event organized by the CHP also joined unions and small left-wing parties in addition to the pro-Curdo dem, the third political force most represented in the Turkish Parliament. The main opposition leaders in Turkey alternated on stage and delegates of the European Socialist Party (PSE) also participated, who had tried to meet Imamoglu in prison but their question was rejected by the Ministry of Justice of Ankara. In the delegation, also the MEP of the Democratic Party Dario Nardella who donated to the CHP a flag of the European Union signed by the European deputies of the Democratic Party.
At the event, President CHP, Ozgur Ozel, launched new appeals to boycott television channels considered close to the government, after similar invitations in recent days. Ozel asked to boycott some of the main broadcasters, and their sponsors, who today have completely ignored the event at the Maltepe park, without transmitting images, or dedicated very little space to the event. “He is trying to listen to any company or local organization that does not join his ideological conspiracies”, was the response of Fahrettin Altun, the director of communications by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who accused the opposition of “creating tension in the country, dividing people and polarizing society”.
While opens a nine -day holiday period in Turkey, for the end of the month of Ramadan, the largest opposition party has made it known that the events will continue and for the moment initiatives have been announced every Wednesday and every end weeks in the chp offices throughout Turkey.
In the meantime, Joakim Medin, the Swedish reporter put in custody already when he landed at Istanbul airport, where he had gone to follow anti -government protests, remains in prison and in prison. The 40 -year -old journalist is accused of “insult to the president” and of “being part of a terrorist organization”. After being transferred to the Maltepe prison he discovered he was already “sought” in Turkey, due to an investigation regarding protests held in Stockholm in 2023, where a puppet from the appearance of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was hung outside the municipality, and is suspected of having participated, promoted or organized those demonstrations. The journalist’s story is followed by the Swedish consulate of Istanbul and the Stoccolma Foreign Ministry and the reporter was able to meet a lawyer in the cell. While in recent days the correspondent of BBC in Istanbul, Mark Lowen, had been expelled from the country and 10 Turkish journalists, including the AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, had been put in custody and released after 48 hours.