Turkish prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of up to three years for 139 people who were arrested during protests sparked last month by the arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
İmamoğlu, widely seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strongest political rival, was arrested on March 23 on corruption charges that many consider politically motivated. His detention on March 19 sparked widespread protests, the largest in Turkey since 2013, and heightened political tensions.
Nearly 2,000 people, including university students, were detained during the demonstrations. Around 300 of them were formally arrested. On March 25 an indictment was filed against 139 individuals who remain in pretrial detention.
The indictment, accepted by the 49th İstanbul Criminal Court of First Instance, charges the students of violating Turkey’s law on public meetings and demonstrations.
The protests took place amid a ban imposed by the İstanbul Governor’s Office on demonstrations in the city following İmamoğlu’s detention between March 19 and 23.
As part of a separate investigation, the protestors are also accused of insulting the president and resisting the police.
Those indicted deny the charges directed against them.
Among them is 22-year-old Berkay Gezgin, known for coining the slogan “Everything will be beautiful,” which became a rallying cry during İmamoğlu’s 2019 mayoral campaign. Gezgin, who was 16 at the time, met İmamoğlu during the campaign and quickly became a symbol of youth support for the opposition figure.
Now held in Marmara Prison — commonly known as Silivri Prison — in İstanbul, Gezgin was elected on Sunday to the party council of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) during an extraordinary congress in Ankara.
He was detained on March 22 while protesting outside İstanbul City Hall in Saraçhane and later transferred to the same prison where İmamoğlu is being held.
His lawyer, Cemil Çiçek, told The Guardian last month that Gezgin was deliberately targeted due to his prominence: “They knew who they were arresting and that he has a lot of youth support. We think he was jailed to send a message: if this guy can be jailed, so can you.”
Gezgin is accused of insulting the president and resisting police. However, Çiçek says his client wasn’t present at the protests since he was inside the municipal building at the time. He also noted that a widely publicized incident involving protesters cursing Erdoğan’s family took place two days after Gezgin’s detention and that he was not involved in it as claimed by the prosecutors.
İmamoğlu, himself a frequent target of Erdoğan, was previously sentenced in December 2022 to nearly three years in prison and a political ban for allegedly insulting members of Turkey’s High Electoral Board. He has appealed the verdict.
Meanwhile, a statement from the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued later on Tuesday said criminal charges have been filed against 819 people as part of 20 investigations launched into the protests over İmamoğlu’s arrest.
Out of 829 suspects identified in the investigations, 819 have now been formally charged in criminal courts of first instance, the prosecutors said. The statement confirmed that 278 of those charged are currently in pretrial detention.