A Turkish court on Friday acquitted 87 people who were tried for taking part in protests that erupted after İstanbul’s popular mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was detained on March 19, with no defendants remaining on trial in the case, the Anka news agency reported.
The defendants had been charged with violating Turkey’s Law on Meetings and Demonstrations, an offense carrying prison terms of between six months and three years. The case was heard by the İstanbul 62nd Criminal Court of First Instance.
İmamoğlu, seen as the most powerful political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is a leading figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its presidential candidate for the next election. He was put in pretrial detention on March 23 in what critics describe as a politically motivated corruption probe.
İmamoğlu’s arrest sparked widespread protests, with thousands gathering outside İstanbul City Hall in Saraçhane at the urging of the CHP. The rally quickly escalated into nightly clashes with riot police and spread across the country, marking Turkey’s worst street unrest in over a decade.
Nearly 2,000 people were detained, among them many students as well as a handful of journalists. Dozens of them were indicted and some had been in pretrial detention for weeks or months.
During Friday’s hearing the prosecutor requested the acquittal of the defendants, saying their actions fell within the scope of freedom of expression, assembly and demonstration and that no criminal elements were present. The court accepted the recommendation and cleared all the defendants.
The defendants’ families welcomed the ruling.
“Once again, justice and youth have triumphed,” the Velider association of parents and students said on X.
In the indictment the demonstrators were accused of ignoring warnings to disperse and continuing what authorities described as an unlawful gathering in defiance of a ban imposed by the İstanbul Governor’s Office.
A total of 99 people were initially charged in the case, including eight journalists and four lawyers, whose files were separated in April.
The same court on Thursday acquitted those 12 defendants, among them journalists Bülent Kılıç, Kurtuluş Arı, Hayri Tunç, Gökhan Kam, Yasin Akgül, Ali Onur Tosun, Emre Orman and Zeynep Kuray, as well as lawyers Deniz Demirdöğen, Mine Erdost, Aziz Can Cengiz and Baran Nevcanoğlu.
With Friday’s acquittals, no defendants remain in detention in connection with the Saraçhane protests.
Although the nightly protests ended after a week, the CHP has continued to hold rallies across Turkey, boosting its standing in the polls.
The CHP has been under a harsh crackdown for more than a year that has so far led to the arrest of 16 CHP mayors and dozens of party officials.
CHP leader Özgür Özel has condemned the detentions as politically motivated, saying the moves aim to weaken local democracy and undermine opposition control in major cities.