Prosecutors in Turkiye requested up to three years’ imprisonment for 74 people detained for taking part in the country’s largest protests in more than a decade, pro-government media reported Friday.
In the first indictment against alleged protesters, the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office asked a court for jail terms between six months and three years, the Haberturk TV channel said. The defendants, who are aged 20 to 40 and mostly university students, are accused of participating in illegal demonstrations and failing to disperse following police warnings.
Seven of those in the indictment are journalists who were detained at home this week.
When hundreds of thousands took to the streets last week following the arrest of Istanbul’s opposition Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, bans on protests and marches were implemented in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
The indictment also calls for political bans that would prevent those convicted from voting or standing for public office. The cases are due before court in mid-April.
Imamoglu, a key rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was jailed pending trial on corruption charges that many see as politically motivated. The government insists the judiciary is independent and free of political interference.
Also on Friday, two journalists were detained in dawn raids in Istanbul, their outlets Etkin News Agency and the Evrensel news website reported. They were the latest to be arrested in early morning sweeps that have targeted political activists, trade unionists and journalists.
Reporters Without Borders condemned the journalists’ arrests. “There is no end to the detentions of journalists,” its Turkiye representative Erol Onderoglu said. The Turkish Journalists’ Union called for the news media to be allowed to do its work and an “end to these unlawful detentions.”
Turkiye’s broadcasting authority issued a 10-day airwave ban on Sozcu TV on Thursday, as well as fines and program suspensions to other opposition channels.
A Swedish newspaper said Friday that one of its journalists was detained while entering Turkiye to cover the protests. Dagens ETC, citing the Swedish Foreign Ministry, said Joakim Medin had been sent to Maltepe prison in Istanbul.
Medin was arrested when he landed in Istanbul around noon on Thursday, the paper said, adding that he was wanted in Turkiye for unknown reasons. According to Medin’s website, he has travelled to northern Syria and wrote a book about Kurdish militants there who Ankara considers terrorists. He has also written a book on authoritarianism under Erdogan.
`Children being treated like terrorists’
Courthouses across Turkiye are dealing with a spike in cases as a result of the protests. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Thursday that nearly 1,900 people had been arrested since March 19.
Anxious families have been gathering outside court buildings to await the fate of their loved ones, who police can hold for four days.
“The youth we call Generation Z are more likely to participate in these protests. They sense that something is wrong,” Savas Ozbek, whose daughter was detained Sunday, told ANKA News Agency outside Ankara Courthouse late Thursday.
Zeynep Ulger, who was waiting for news of her friend, said they were protesting for a “free, democratic country,” adding: “The only thing we have achieved in the face of this is being beaten by the police on the streets and being detained.”
Istanbul-based lawyer Arif Anil Ozturk, who represents many detained protesters, gave his insight into court proceedings.
“It is an unlawful process from beginning to end,” he told the Cumhuriyet newspaper. “There is no evidence, no footage. Children are being treated like terrorists.”
Nightly Istanbul rallies organized by Imamoglu’s Republican People’s Party, or CHP, ended Tuesday. In other cities, and in Istanbul since the end of the CHP gatherings, largely peaceful protests have been more organic.
Police, however, have used tear gas, water cannon and plastic pellets to suppress demonstrations that have been banned in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
Lawyers detained
At the Middle East Technical University campus on the outskirts of the capital Ankara, nine students were detained early Friday, opposition politicians who visited the site said.
Aylin Yaman, a CHP member of parliament, said students were sitting on the grass and singing when police stormed the area at 2 a.m. “We object to the police entering here as if it were a dawn operation and creating an atmosphere of fear,” she said.
The Istanbul Bar Association announced that three lawyers were among some 100 people arrested at a Thursday demonstration in the city’s Sisli district. Lawyers also said they had been kept waiting for hours outside police headquarters to gain access to detainees.
Imamoglu’s lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan was detained Friday, accused of money laundering. He was conditionally released later.
`We are concerned,’ says U.S.’ top diplomat
Turkiye’s Nobel-winning author Orhan Pamuk, writing in several European newspapers, said events over the past 10 days represented “Erdogan’s strong-fisted, autocratic rule @ a level we have not seen before.”
Following a meeting with Turkiye’s foreign minister earlier in the week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described events in Turkiye as “disturbing.” Speaking on a return flight from Suriname late Thursday, he said: “We are concerned, we don’t like to see the direction that’s going... Anytime you have instability on the ground you don’t like to see it.”
A group of European politicians arrived in Istanbul to show support for Imamoglu and meet opposition figures, led by former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven. “This is not just about one person. This is about democracy, and we are here to stand up for democratic values,” he said.
In a TV interview Friday, the co-leader of the pro-Kurdish DEM Party appeared to offer qualified support for the protests. “We are not the CHP’s activist group. We support them but we will not take to the streets for this,” Tuncer Bakirhan said.
Imamoglu faces charges stemming from two investigations into corruption and terrorism. He was confirmed this week as the CHP’s presidential candidate in an election currently scheduled for 2028, but which is likely to take place earlier.
------
By Andrew Wilks, The Associated Press
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Miami and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
