The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison and banned from political activity. Imamoglu, 52, was considered a potential opponent of the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the presidential elections in June 2023.
The mayor was found guilty of “insulting a public official” over a statement in 2019 when he called those responsible for canceling the local elections in Istanbul “fools”, where he won by a few dozen votes over the candidate of the Akp party of the President Erdogan, the former premier Binali Yildirim. The Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey decided to hold elections again after a few months due to irregularities. Imamoglu also won in that case, in June 2019, but with a wider margin of votes over his opponent than in the first elections.
“We want law, justice, human rights” was one of the slogans shouted by the crowd of thousands gathered in Sarachane, under the municipal building in Istanbul, to protest against the sentence. “Today it is not only Ekrem Imamoglu who has been tried, the justice system and the whole city of Istanbul have been condemned, but Imamoglu is not alone, all 16 million citizens are with him,” he told theAnsa Kemal, a 70-year-old pensioner among the participants in the event. After his conviction, Imamoglu received sympathy from leaders of various opposition parties and plans to speak to his supporters outside the Istanbul municipality.
Imamoglu will now appeal, but could already lose his position as mayor of the city.