Protests are continuing in several parts of Turkey, particularly among students and youth groups, one month after the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
İmamoğlu, a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the main rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was detained on March 19 and formally arrested on March 23 in connection with a corruption investigation. The CHP later announced him as its presidential candidate for the 2028 election.
Following his detention, nightly demonstrations were held outside İstanbul City Hall and quickly spread to other provinces, marking one of the largest waves of unrest in the country since 2013. The protests, which briefly subsided during Ramadan festivities, have resumed over the past 10 days, especially at universities in İstanbul and Ankara.
The scope of the protests has since expanded to include dozens of high schools. The change was triggered in part by the government’s decision to reassign teachers at certain schools, a move critics see as politically motivated.
“There was already a sense of resentment, but it has crystallized into a more open rejection since mid-March,” Demet Lüküslü, a sociology professor at Yeditepe University in İstanbul, told Agence France-Presse.
Some students view the unrest as a response to what they describe as increasing conservatism and a demand for greater freedoms. High school student Eda, 17, told AFP she participated in protests at her school, describing the movement as an attempt to “break the silence” imposed by authorities. She noted that several dozen of the hundreds detained remain in custody.
On Friday a mass trial involving 189 people began in İstanbul, with many of the defendants accused of offenses related to participation in unauthorized demonstrations. Supporters of the detainees gathered outside the courthouse under a heavy police presence.
One of them, a university student named Ahmetcan Kaptan, said, “We are here for our friends who are on trial. We won’t leave them on their own.”
The unrest has coincided with economic fluctuations. The BIST 100 index of the İstanbul stock exchange fell nearly 14 percent over the past 30 days, and the Turkish lira has dropped approximately 8 percent against the US dollar. The central bank intervened with an estimated $50 billion and raised the key interest rate to 46 percent on Thursday — the first hike since March 2024.
CHP Chairman Özgür Özel, who has previously called for early elections over the İstanbul mayor’s jailing, called for a new rally in the central Anatolian city of Yozgat on Saturday, part of an ongoing series of rallies calling for İmamoğlu’s release.
People gathered in the Yozgat city center and Özel joined the rally, where he was welcomed by local farmers who lined up a convoy of tractors. The protest was symbolic of rural discontent with the government, particularly among agricultural workers.
Yozgat is historically viewed as one of the bastions of conservatism and nationalism, with 76 percent of the voters choosing President Erdoğan over his rival in the 2023 general election.
However, in the March 2024 local elections, the mayoral candidate of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost the election against a rival from a smaller Islamist opposition party.
CHP Yozgat Provincial Chair Abdullah Yaşar read a message from İmamoğlu during the rally, in which the jailed mayor stated, “No one should see Yozgat as their political stronghold. Yozgat belongs not to any party or person, but to the republic, to democracy and to national sovereignty.”
Local grievances were echoed by a Yozgat farmer who spoke to the ANKA news agency, complaining about high fuel and fertilizer prices and low wheat purchase rates.
“We’re splitting a single loaf of bread between my wife and me,” the farmer said, urging the government to “leave partisanship behind and address the hunger of the people.”