ISTANBUL: Just four days after his arrest in a pre-dawn raid by police, the opposition mayor was stripped of his title and became an inmate at Silivri prison on the megacity’s western outskirts.

“This is not a judicial procedure, it’s a (political) execution without trial,” Ekrem Imamoglu wrote on X through his lawyers while being taken to jail after a court formalised his arrest.

Imamoglu vows to fight on after court formalises his arrest in corruption case

His arrest has sparked a massive wave of protest that began in Istanbul but has since spread to at least 55 of Turkiye’s 81 provinces, according to an AFP count.

Demonstrators were gearing up for another mass show of defiance on Sunday night, with the Istanbul authorities moving to close off roads leading to City Hall.

As the court placed him under arrest in a graft investigation though decided against formalising his arrest in a separate “terror” probe, the interior ministry said he had been “suspended from office”.

The court decisions came as the main opposition CHP party held a long-planned primary to elect Imamoglu as its candidate in the 2028 presidential election.

In a post on X shortly after the court decision, Imamoglu vowed to fight on, urging his supporters not to lose heart. “We will erase this black stain on our democracy,” he wrote in a message transmitted via his lawyers. “I will not be bowed.”

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2025