Hundreds gathered Thursday in Istanbul to protest the arrest and removal from office of a mayor from Turkey’s main opposition party for his alleged links to a banned Kurdish militant group.
Ahmet Ozer, mayor of Istanbul’s Esenyurt district and a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), was detained on Wednesday by anti-terrorist police over his alleged connection to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey’s government then replaced Ozer with Istanbul’s deputy governor, a move the CHP’s leader Ozgur Ozel and other politicians described as a “coup.”
Demonstrators filled a square in Esenyurt after the government banned a rally outside the municipality building. Some carried banners that read: “(We want) an elected mayor not an appointed mayor” and called for the resignation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
“In our view, this (government), which acts against the law and violates the constitution, has carried out a political coup. We will never accept it,” said Tulay Hatimogullari, the leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party.
Ozer, 64, is a former academic originally from eastern Turkey. He was elected mayor of Esenyurt, a western suburb in Istanbul’s European side, in March local elections. The Istanbul prosecutor’s office said an investigation found Ozer had maintained contacts with PKK figures for more than 10 years.
Politicians and members of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish movement have frequently been targeted over alleged links to the PKK, which is considered a terror organization. The CHP’s metropolitan mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, is currently appealing a prison sentence and political ban imposed by a court.
