The head of Turkey’s main opposition party has told the BBC that protests will continue “in every city” until either early presidential elections are called, or the jailed mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, is released from prison.
Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the mayor’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the nationwide protests would include a very large demonstration this Saturday in Istanbul. That will open the party’s campaign to make Imamoglu the country’s next president in elections that are due in 2028, he said.
“In every city we go to, we will have the biggest rallies in their history,” Ozel declared.
“The belief in Ekrem Imamoglu and in democracy will make the protests bigger and stronger,” he told us at his party headquarters in Istanbul, as visitors, staff and advisors bustled in and out.
The opposition has brought huge crowds onto the streets – the biggest seen here in over a decade – since Imamoglu was arrested seven days ago.
Alongside the mass demonstrations, there have also been mass arrests – more than 1,400 people and counting, including seven Turkish journalists who were reporting on the protests.
