The Turkish government has detained 53 people amid its clampdown on protests following the incarceration of a top rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the interior ministry said on Friday.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 16 police officers had been injured in protests that had broken out on university campuses, Istanbul municipal headquarters, and elsewhere on Thursday.
The government in Ankara also warned against “illegal” calls from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for further street protests over the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, after thousands demonstrated across Turkey over the past two days.
Imamoglu, Erdogan’s main rival, was detained on Wednesday and faces charges including exploiting his position for financial gain, improper allocation of government contracts, and aiding a proscribed terrorist group.
The CHP condemned the detention and charging of the mayor as politically motivated and urged people to demonstrate lawfully.
European leaders have also lambasted the detention as democratic backsliding.
Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed concern over Imamoglu’s detention, saying it was a “very, very bad sign” for Turkey’s relations with the European Union.
“We can only call for this to end immediately and for opposition and government to stand in competition with each other, and not the opposition being brought to court,” he said.
Germany is home to the largest Turkish community outside Turkey.
Yerlikaya and Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc criticized the calls for action from CHP leader Ozgur Ozel as “irresponsible” amid a four-day ban on public gatherings that they have instituted.
“The right to assembly and demonstration is a fundamental right. However, street calls made on the basis of ongoing judicial investigations are unlawful and unacceptable,” Tunc said in a post on social media platform X.
Tunc said the courtroom was the place to respond to legal proceedings and appealed for calm, adding that the “independent and unbiased judiciary” was evaluating the case.
Demonstrations took place on Thursday across the country, with police barricading several main streets in cities.
Police blocked a group of youths who attempted to breach a barricade to march toward Taksim Square in the center of Istanbul and used pepper spray to break them up.
In the capital Ankara, police deployed tear gas and water cannons to disperse a protest at the city’s prestigious Middle East Technical University.
Demonstrations also erupted in the cities of Adana and Izmir.
Erdogan dismissed the CHP’s criticism as “theatrics” and “slogans” designed to distract.
Speaking at the main Istanbul rally late on Thursday, Ozel responded: “Hey Erdogan, you’re most scared of the streets. We are now on the streets, in squares. Continue to be afraid.”
“While you keep the one we elected in custody, we will not sit at home,” he said in front of thousands of supporters.
“Mr. Tayyip, you are scared and you are asking, ‘Are you calling people to the streets? Are you calling people to the squares?’ Yes. I didn’t fill up these squares or these streets, you did.”
Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas, another popular opposition figure, joined the rally, calling on all opposition parties to join forces against “injustices.”
Since Imamoglu was detained, many supporters have called for more organized action from the CHP, which makes Ozel’s remarks a significant escalation of pressure on the Erdogan regime.
The move against Imamoglu, 54, a two-term mayor, comes as the CHP was set to announce him as its presidential candidate on Sunday.
It has called for non-party members to vote for him in ballot boxes across the country, as a sign of public resistance to Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
No presidential election is scheduled until 2028, but Erdogan, who has held the post since 2014, could call it early to avoid hitting the two-term limit if he decides to run again.
Before becoming president, the 71-year-old AKP leader had been prime minister of the NATO country for 11 years.
Imamoglu’s detention caps off a legal clampdown on opposition figures that has lasted months and been labeled as an attempt to sabotage the electoral prospects of rival politicians and silence dissent.
The AKP rejects these accusations.
Ankara has dramatically curbed civil disobedience since the 2013 Gezi Park protests against Erdogan sparked a violent state clampdown.
In an interview on Thursday, Ozel told Reuters his party would resist but not disrupt public order.
He vowed to resist any potential attempts by authorities to remove him and CHP officials from the municipality headquarters, where they have been staying since Imamoglu’s detention.
The party would resist any unjust replacement of Imamoglu, he said.
A government appointee could replace the mayor if he is formally arrested in the coming days as part of the probe charging him with aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its allies in the West.
His detention came a day after a university annulled his degree, which, if upheld, would block him from running for president under constitutional rules that require candidates to hold four-year degrees.
