Turkey: over 120 arrests in one day in opposition stronghold city
In total, 157 arrest warrants were issued, local media reported, including Cumhuriyet daily and private NTV television.
Protesters clash with Turkish riot police officers during a protest in Istanbul.
More than 120 members of the municipality of Izmir, a city considered the stronghold of the opposition in western Turkey, were detained on Tuesday for "corruption," according to local press and the CHP party, which denounced an operation similar to the one carried out in March in Istanbul.
In total, 157 arrest warrants were issued, according to local media reports, including Cumhuriyet daily and private NTV television.
Bakan: "We are facing a process similar to that of Istanbul"
Murat Bakan, deputy chairman of the Republican People's Party (CHP), the first opposition formation that has long led the country's third largest city, stated on the X network that a former mayor and numerous "senior officials" were detained.
"The former mayor of the metropolitan municipality Tunç Soyer, senior officials at the time and our provincial chairman Senol Aslanoglu were detained at dawn," Bakan wrote.
"This dawn detention is not a legal obligation, but a clear political choice," he denounced, adding that many of those arrested had already been investigated. "The addresses of these people are known. If they were called to testify, they would come forward," he added.
"We are facing a process similar to that of Istanbul," Bakan warned.
The Istanbul case
The crackdown on protests that led to the arrest of the presidential candidate led to the arrest of protesters, journalists and lawyers, in some cases at their homes in the early hours of the morning.
In the first four days, and according to official data released, more than 2,000 people were arrested and at least 260 of them jailed. Imamoglu also remains in jail.
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