ISTANBUL: A Turkish court jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Sunday pending trial, state media and other broadcasters said, in a move likely to stoke the country’s biggest protests in more than decade.
The decision to send Imamoglu — who is President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival — to prison comes after the main opposition party, European leaders and tens of thousands of protesters criticized the actions against him as politicized.
The court said Imamoglu and at least 20 others were jailed as part of a corruption investigation. A separate ruling on a terror-related investigation has yet to be issued.Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said on Sunday that he will not bow down after court ruled to jail him pending trial over corruption related investigation.
"We will, hand in hand, uproot this blow, this black stain on our democracy... I am standing tall, I will not bow down," Imamoglu said in a post on X.
Turkish court jails Istanbul mayor Imamoglu pending trial
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Turkish court jails Istanbul mayor Imamoglu pending trial
- Ruling likely to stoke tensions after four days of protests
- The court said Imamoglu and at least 20 others were jailed as part of a corruption investigation
Turkiye protesters defiant despite mass arrests
In a possible shift in tactics, Ozel said the CHP was not calling for another nightly protest
ISTANBUL: Protesters were defiant Wednesday despite a growing crackdown and nearly 1,500 arrests as they marked a week since the start of Turkiye’s biggest street demonstrations against the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since 2013.
The protests erupted on March 19 after the arrest of Istanbul opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as part of a graft and “terror” probe, which his supporters denounced as a “coup.”
Vast crowds have hit the street daily, defying protest bans in Istanbul and other big cities and the arrests with 1,418 people held up to Tuesday according to official figures.
Those detained include AFP journalist Yasin Akgul, who the Paris-based agency says was doing his job covering the protests.
Erdogan, who has repeatedly denounced the protests as “street terror,” stepped up his attacks on the opposition with a bitter tirade against the main opposition Republican People’s (CHP) party of Imamoglu and its leader Ozgur Ozel.
In a possible shift in tactics, Ozel said the CHP was not calling for another nightly protest Wednesday outside the Istanbul mayor office, instead urging people to attend a mega rally on Saturday.
But it was far from certain that angry students, who have taken an increasingly prominent role in the protests and are far from all CHP supporters, would stay off the streets.
Most nights, the protests have turned into running battles with riot police, whose crackdown has alarmed rights groups. But there were no such clashes on Tuesday, AFP correspondents said.
The arrest of Akgul, who was remanded in custody on Tuesday along with six other journalists who were also arrested in dawn raids on Monday, was denounced by rights groups and Agence France — Presse, which said the 35-year-old’s jailing was “unacceptable” and demanded his immediate release.
“We are deeply concerned by reports of repression against protesters and journalists in Turkiye,” said a French foreign ministry source, asking not to be named, adding that Akgul “was covering the protests professionally.”
Addressing the vast crowds gathered for a seventh straight night at Istanbul City Hall, Ozel said the crackdown would only strengthen the protest movement.
“There is one thing that Mr.Tayyip should know: our numbers won’t decrease with the detentions and arrests, we will grow and grow and grow!” he vowed.
The extent of the crackdown, he said, meant there was “no room left in Istanbul’s prisons.”
Imamoglu also posted a defiant message targeting Erdogan on his social media channels, vowing to “send him away at the ballot box,” accusing the Turkish leader of “staying behind closed doors in Ankara not to govern Turkiye but to protect his seat.”
“We will be one... we will succeed,” he added.
Erdogan himself took aim at Ozel in a speech to his party, dismissing the CHP leader as “a politically bankrupt figure whose ambitions and fears have taken his mind captive.”
The CHP, he claimed, had created “too much material even for Brazilian soap operas” with corruption cases in Istanbul municipalities.
Although the crackdown has not reduced the numbers, most students who joined a huge street rally on Tuesday had their faces covered, an AFP correspondent said.
“We want the government to resign, we want our democratic rights, we are fighting for a freer Turkiye right now,” a 20-year-old student who gave his name as Mali told AFP.
“We are not terrorists, we are students and the reason we are here is to exercise our democratic rights and to defend democracy,” he said.
Like most protesters, his face was covered and he refused to give his surname for fear of reprisals.
Another masked student who gave her name as Lydia, 25, urged more people to hit the streets.
“All Turkish people should take to the streets, they are hunting us like vermin (while) you are sitting at home. Come out, look after us! We are your students, we are your future,” she said, her anger evident.
Unlike previous days, the CHP’s Ozel said there would be no rally at City Hall on Wednesday, but called protesters to rally instead on Saturday in the Istanbul district of Maltepe to demand early elections.
Lebanese defense minister’s visit to Syria delayed: officials
- The delay was “in no way related to tensions or conflicts” said an official
- Menassa had been set to meet his Syrian counterpart
BEIRUT: Syrian Arab Republic’s authorities delayed a visit planned for Wednesday by the Lebanese defense minister that aimed to discuss tensions along the border, officials from the two countries told AFP.
“We were informed on Tuesday by the Syrian party of the postponement of the visit” of Lebanese minister Michel Menassa, a Lebanese official said on condition of anonymity.
The delay was “in no way related to tensions or conflicts,” the official added, without specifying the date to which it had been postponed.
A Syrian government source meanwhile told AFP that the delay was due to “preparations for the formation of a new government.”
Menassa had been set to meet his Syrian counterpart, Murhaf Abu Qasra, in the first visit by a Lebanese minister since the cabinet was formed in February.
Border tensions flared earlier in March after Syria’s new authorities accused Lebanese armed group Hezbollah of kidnapping three soldiers into Lebanon and killing them.
The Iran-backed group, which fought alongside the forces of toppled Syrian president Bashar Assad, denied involvement. But the ensuing cross-border clashes left seven Lebanese dead.
Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad in December.
Israeli attacks have ‘got to stop’: Senior UK minister
- Health secretary: Britain has used ‘every diplomatic lever’ to end ‘unjustifiable’ violence
- FM: ‘Difficult to see’ how Israel’s actions ‘compatible with international humanitarian law’
LONDON: Israel’s attacks on Palestinians have “got to stop,” the UK’s health minister has said.
Wes Streeting denounced Israel’s ending of the two-month ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza as “soul-destroying,” adding that airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave “can’t be justified as self-defense.”
Israel restarted operations in Gaza last week. The territory’s health authorities say nearly 700 people have died since then, the majority of whom are believed to be women and children. It brings the total number of deaths in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, to more than 50,000.
Streeting told The Guardian at a live event on Tuesday that the UK government has used “every diplomatic lever available” to end the “bloody war,” but he still feels “powerless” in the face of renewed Israeli aggression in Gaza and the West Bank.
“I find it soul-destroying seeing the breakdown of the ceasefire and the impact we’re seeing on innocent human lives,” he said.
“I was looking back at some photos just this morning of a place called Susya in the West Bank, which has been under threat of demolition by the Israelis for many years and now is on the frontline of settler violence.
“This is completely unjustifiable. It’s completely intolerable. It doesn’t serve in Israel’s self-interest. It can’t be justified as self-defense, and it has got to stop.”
He added: “It’s very frustrating … feeling powerless in the face of this appalling conflict which does nothing for Israelis or Palestinians.”
A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 18 said the renewed strikes on Gaza were “only the beginning.”
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the “appalling loss of life,” saying it is “difficult to see” how Israel’s actions “can be compatible with international humanitarian law.”
Israel threatens to seize parts of Gaza over fate of hostages
- Netanyahu told parliament that “the more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the stronger the pressure we will exert”
- Hamas warned hostages would return “in coffins” if Israel does not stop bombing the Palestinian territory
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Wednesday to seize parts of Gaza if Hamas does not release hostages, while the militant group warned they would return “in coffins” if Israel does not stop bombing the Palestinian territory.
Just over a week since the military resumed operations following a January truce, Israel said two projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip, with one intercepted and the other landing near the border, and with no immediate reports of any casualties or damage.
The rocket fire came a day after hundreds of Palestinians staged a rare protest against Hamas, chanting slogans against the Islamist movement and calling for an end to the war.
Shattering weeks of relative calm in the war brought by the fragile ceasefire, Israel last week resumed intense bombardment and ground operations across Gaza, while militants returned to launching rocket attacks.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 830 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its strikes on March 18. No deaths have been reported on the Israeli side.
Israeli officials say the resumption of operations was meant to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages, after a stalemate in talks with mediators on extending the truce — which saw 33 Israeli captives freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel wanted an extension of the truce’s initial phase, while Hamas demanded talks on a second stage that was meant to lead to a permanent ceasefire.
Netanyahu told parliament that “the more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the stronger the pressure we will exert.”
“This includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here,” he added, days after his Defense Minister Israel Katz had warned: “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel.”
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
“Every time the occupation attempts to retrieve its captives by force, it ends up bringing them back in coffins,” Hamas said in a statement.
The group said it was “doing everything possible to keep the (Israeli) occupation’s captives alive, but the random Zionist bombardment is endangering their lives.”
Gal Gilboa-Dalal, an Israeli survivor of the 2023 attack whose brother was taken hostage, has told AFP he can “constantly imagine our reunion.”
“This moment felt closer than ever and unfortunately, it’s drifting away from me again,” he said of his brother Guy Gilboa-Dalal, taken from a music festival near the Gaza border and last seen in a video shared by Hamas last month.
“We are fighting here against a terrorist organization that only understands force,” said Gal.
“On the other hand, I am terrified that these bombings and this operation... will endanger the hostages there. There’s no way to know what the terrorists might do to them or if a missile might accidentally hit them,” he added
The Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 50,183 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry.
In northern Gaza on Tuesday, Palestinians gathered for the biggest anti-Hamas rally since the start of the war, chanting “Hamas out” and “Hamas terrorists.”
Majdi, a protester who did not wish to give his full name, said the “people are tired.”
“If Hamas leaving power in Gaza is the solution, why doesn’t Hamas give up power to protect the people?“
Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007 after winning a Palestinian election the year before. No vote has been held since.
Levels of discontent toward Hamas in Gaza are difficult to gauge, in part because of its intolerance for public expressions of dissent.
Fatah, the Palestinian movement of president Mahmud Abbas, has called on Hamas to “step aside from governing” Gaza to safeguard the “existence” of Palestinians in the war-battered territory.
Sudanese army surrounds Khartoum airport and nearby areas, two military sources say
- The Sudanese army is encircling Khartoum airport and surrounding areas
- RSF has mainly stationed its forces in southern Khartoum to secure their withdrawal from the capital
DUBAI: The Sudanese army is encircling Khartoum airport and surrounding areas, two military sources told Reuters on Wednesday, another key development in the ongoing two-year conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The army seized control of the presidential palace in downtown Khartoum on Friday, marking a major gain in a war that threatens to partition the country. The army had long been on the back foot but has recently made gains and has retaken territory from the RSF in the centre of the country.
The RSF has mainly stationed its forces in southern Khartoum to secure their withdrawal from the capital via bridges to Omdurman, witnesses told Reuters.
The UN calls the situation in Sudan the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with famine in several locations and disease across the country of 50 million people.
The war erupted two years ago as the country was planning a transition to democratic rule.
The army and RSF had joined forces after ousting Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019 and later to oust civilian leadership.
But they had long been at odds, as Bashir developed Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, and the RSF, which has its roots in Darfur's janjaweed militias, as a counterweight to the army, led by career officer Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
