Thousands of people gather in Istanbul while Erdogan issues a warning against demonstrations against the arrest of mayors

The demonstrations broke out in several Turkish cities on Friday (March 21, 2025) while people gathered against the arrest of the mayor of Istanbuls and the first rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, despite the severe warning of the Turkish chief that street protests would not be tolerated.

In Istanbul, the police used peppery gas, tear gas and rubber bullets to repel hundreds of demonstrators who tried to unravel a barricade in front of the city's historic aqueduct and threw enlightening rockets, stones and other objects.

Read also | Turkey relaxes 37 on provocative publications on social networks after the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu

Police also broken the demonstrations in Ankara, the capital, as well as in the coastal city of the Aegean of Izmir, using energetic measures sometimes, according to the images indicated on the private HALK TV. Thousands of people have worked in several other cities calling on the government to resign, the station reported.

At least 97 people were held nationally during the demonstrations, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.

Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested on Wednesday during a dawn raid at his residence for alleged ties of corruption and terrorism, degenerating a repression against opposition figures and dissident voices. Several other leading figures, including two district mayors, have also been detained.

Many consider arrest as a politically motivated attempt to remove a popular opposition figure and a key challenger to Mr. Erdogan during the next presidential race, currently planned for 2028. Government officials reject the accusations according to which legal actions against opposition figures are politically motivated and insist that the courts of Trkiyes operate independently.

Imamoglu was questioned by police for four hours on corruption accusations, during which he denied all the accusations, the Cumhuriyet newspaper and other media reported. He was to be transferred to a courthouse on Saturday evening for interrogation by prosecutors.

His arrest has triggered the biggest demonstrations since 2013, when Trkiye was shaken by mass anti-government demonstrations that made eight dead people.

Earlier Friday, the leader of the main opposition party of Trkiyes, Ozgur Ozel, renewed an appeal to supporters to take the streets for peaceful demonstrations, while the authorities have expanded the prohibition of demonstrations and criticized the appeal as irresponsible.

I invite tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions, to demonstrate peacefully, express our democratic reaction and exercise our constitutional rights, he said.

Addressing a large rally outside the town hall, Mr. Ozel accused Erdogan of using the judiciary as a tool after having failed to defeat the mayor in a fair manner.

Erdogan, increasingly authoritarian after more than two decades in power, said that the government would not tolerate street demonstrations and accused the opposition party of links with corruption and terrorism organizations.

An anti-corruption operation in Istanbul is used as an excuse for stirring the disorders in our streets. I want it to be known that we do not allow a handful of opportunists to bring trouble to Trkiye just to protect their looting plans, said Erdogan.

Point the streets instead of the hearing rooms to defend theft, looting, anarchy and fraud is serious irresponsibility, said Erdogan. Just as we have not gone to the terrorism of the street so far, we will not bow to vandalism in the future either.

Friday, the authorities of Ankara and Izmir announced a five -day ban on demonstrations, following a similar measure imposed earlier in Istanbul. The authorities announced on Friday, more road closings in Istanbul on Friday and closed metro stops near a university in Ankara, where violent clashes occurred a day earlier.

Mr. Imamoglus Arrestation came only a few days before he was appointed the presidential candidate of the republican people of the primary opposition on Sunday. Ozel said the primary, where approximately 1.5 million delegates can vote, will continue as planned.

The opposition party also urged citizens to participate in a symbolic election on Sunday thanks to improvised ballot boxes to set up through Trkiye to show solidarity with Mr. Imamoglu.

Analysts say that Imamoglu could be withdrawn from his functions and replaced by a fiduciary mayor, if he is officially responsible for links to the Kurdistan worker party prohibited, or PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Trkiye and its Western allies.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ozel also said that the opposition party would hold an extraordinary party congress on April 6, to thwart the authorities' attempts to appoint a fiduciary president to lead the party. The decision came in the midst of speculations according to which the authorities could cancel the last congress of the parties, held in 2023, for the purchase of votes and other alleged irregularities, and appoint a layer in the side.

Also Friday, armed men opened fire on the Iraqi consulate in Istanbul, Turkish and Iraqi foreign ministries said. No injury has been reported.

The Iraks Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that unknown attackers leading to a motorcycle and armed with an assault rifle, fired eight shots in the building before fleeing.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the necessary investigation is meticulously completed by our security units and that officials will be brought to justice. He said that measures had been taken to carry out Iraqi diplomatic missions in Ankara, Istanbul and Gaziantep.

It was not clear what could have motivated the shooting.