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Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is facing a second day of intense questioning by police in connection with terror-related charges just a day after his initial interrogation over corruption allegations, the Associated Press reported. Imamoglu’s arrest this week has sparked widespread protests across Turkey, with demonstrators rallying in multiple cities to voice their opposition to his detention.
The mayor, a prominent opposition figure and a key challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the upcoming 2028 presidential elections, was detained on Wednesday after a raid at his residence. He faces accusations of financial crimes and links to Kurdish militants, claims he has denied. Dozens of other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also detained.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, meanwhile, has confirmed that 343 suspects had been detained during protests that erupted in major cities—Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Antalya, Çanakkale, Eskişehir, Konya, and Edirne—on Friday night, the report stated.
Authorities would not tolerate any actions that threaten public order, peace, or security, Yerlikaya wrote in a post on social media, labelling such actions as “chaos and provocation.”
Imamoglu’s arrest has been widely viewed as a politically motivated move to weaken a popular opposition figure, seen by many as a top rival to Erdogan. Government officials, however, have denied these allegations, maintaining that Turkey’s courts operate independently and that the legal actions against Imamoglu are based on legitimate concerns.
On Friday, Imamoglu underwent a four-hour police interrogation.
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