Turkish police storm offices of main opposition CHP party, firing tear gas and rubber bullets – Las Vegas Sun News

ANKARA (AP) — Police stormed the offices of
The CHP, Turkey’s main opposition party
Sunday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at party supporters and officials who had been cooped up inside for three days.

It was a violent end to a clash between members of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and a leadership team appointed by an appeals court, exacerbating tensions between the opposition and the president’s government.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
.

The supporters had barricaded the entrance to the courtyard with buses and the building with furniture. Images taken by local media in the courtyard and inside the building showed clouds of tear gas as riot police stormed the premises, before the journalists were removed by police.

Once the raid began, the supporters attempted to resist the police by dousing them with fire extinguishers, but were quickly stopped. Doors, furniture and windows on the ground floor were destroyed in the melee.

Among those inside the building was
Ozgur Ozel
elected president of the party in November 2023 but dismissed by court decision. Video from inside his office at the start of the raid shows him being served the court order deporting him, which he quickly tore up.

Leaving the party headquarters to the cheers of supporters outside, Ozel told reporters: “We are leaving (the building) now only to reclaim it in such a way that no one can interfere with it again. When we return, neither this administration nor its collaborators will dare to do this again.”

Ozel asks his supporters to rebuild the party for the third time

Ozel and his supporters then marched to Parliament about 8 kilometers (5 miles) away, joined by hundreds of passers-by despite heavy rain and hail. Before arriving at Parliament, he stopped at the National Sovereignty Park where he asked the crowd if they were ready to rebuild the party a third time.

The CHP was established in 1923 by Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but was shut down in a military coup in 1980, before re-emerging in 1992.

Outside Parliament, Ozel gathered a crowd of hundreds, telling them that the CHP was “de facto closed” but would be reinstated.

Even though he is removed from his position as CHP chairman, Ozel remains an elected MP from the western province of Manisa as well as the party group chairman.

The appeals court on Thursday annulled Ozel’s election as CHP president, suspending him and members of the party’s executive council. The ruling states that Ozel should be replaced by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, his predecessor, who led the party for 13 years but never won a national election.

Meanwhile, Ozel, in his first and only election as party leader, dealt a decisive blow to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in the 2024 municipal elections.

The opposition says the decision was politically motivated to weaken the party as it struggles against
waves of trials
targeting its members and elected officials.

Erdogan’s eyes are on the next elections

The next presidential election won’t take place until 2028, but Erdogan may call for early voting. His main challenger, the mayor of Istanbul
Ekrem Imamoglu
member of the CHP, has been imprisoned since March last year and is
tried for corruption
.

Many observers have said the legal proceedings against the CHP – mainly centered on corruption allegations – aim to neutralize the party before the next election. The government insists that Turkish courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure.

The vast majority of the party rallied behind Ozel. He and most party members had been inside the CHP headquarters in Ankara since Thursday’s decision, with the new administration unable to enter. The rival teams were scheduled to meet on Sunday afternoon to find a way out of the impasse.

Early Sunday, a crowd gathered outside the office, watched by a growing police presence. Kilicdaroglu’s lawyer, Celal Celik, asked Ankara police to help him evacuate the building, a move approved by the provincial governor.

The police raid comes at the start of a nine-day holiday for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, when many people are on vacation and outside major cities.

Erdogan has led Turkey, first as prime minister and then as president, since 2003. His electoral record suffered a setback in 2019, when the CHP took control of several major cities in local elections. In Istanbul, Imamoglu emerged as a popular and charismatic figure who many believed could succeed in toppling Erdogan.