MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Large protests have erupted in Turkey after the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul. Critics say the corruption charges are politically motivated, designed to remove a rival to longtime president Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the next election. Joining us now with the latest from Turkey is reporter Durrie Bouscaren. Durrie, thank you for joining us.
DURRIE BOUSCAREN: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: OK. So a court issued its arrest order on Sunday, but the mayor was initially detained last week. Can you walk us through how we got here?
BOUSCAREN: Sure. Starting Wednesday, Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was in the equivalent of pretrial detention. Prosecutors allege that he was the ringleader of this massive conspiracy at City Hall to embezzle money and steal private information from citizens. There's also a separate case accusing him of links to Kurdish militants. He denied all of these charges at a hearing early on Sunday, but a judge ruled that Imamoglu must spend the remainder of his trial in jail. He's incarcerated alongside about 50 other defendants, many of them former aides and municipal employees.
MARTIN: And this has inspired these large protests - I understand, some of the biggest protests Turkey has seen in more than a decade. Say more about what's fueling these protests, getting people to come out into the street, and what you're hearing when you talk to people.
BOUSCAREN: There's this anger that's been building. President Erdogan has consolidated all powers of the state under him over the past decade, and I think that anger is finally coming out. I mean, here's a clip from last night.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Turkish).
BOUSCAREN: So these protesters are chanting, hak, hukuk, adalet - rights, law, justice. Many say they're not here for Imamoglu - they're here because it's a make-or-break moment for Turkish democracy. And police aren't outright blocking demonstrations. But they're using tear gas, plastic bullets, and even beating protesters to disperse them in some areas. They've also arrested journalists in house raids for being present at the protests, which are banned right now. The interior ministry says police officers have also been injured in these clashes. And Erdogan has accused the opposition of provoking the nation by calling for these protests to disturb the peace and polarize the people.
MARTIN: But, Durrie, you know, the mayor's arrest came just days before his party was set to nominate him as their presidential candidate, and that would set him up to face Erdogan in 2028. And I take it his party says that this is related.
BOUSCAREN: They do, although the administration denies this. And on Sunday, this was his party's first presidential primary in recent memory. After Imamoglu's arrest, the party decided to open up voting to everyone, so even people who weren't registered opposition party members. All over the country yesterday, you had these incredibly long lines, even in conservative districts that usually go for Erdogan, and people were just dropping ballot after ballot into these solidarity voting boxes. At least 13 million people cast ballots this way yesterday. And for the formal primary, the turnout rate was, like, 94% for party members. So many analysts believe Erdogan will call for early elections, which would allow him to bypass term limits before 2028.
MARTIN: So would the mayor, Imamoglu, even be able to run?
BOUSCAREN: You can't run for office with a criminal conviction in Turkey, and Imamoglu has been chased by these lawsuits since he took office as mayor in 2019. That said, there's another big figure in Turkish politics who was briefly imprisoned as a mayor - Recep Tayyip Erdogan. So here's the big question - is Imamoglu following in Erdogan's footsteps? Or, 22 years later, are Turkey's basic tenets of democracy so worn down that the crackdown will win?
MARTIN: That is reporter Durrie Bouscaren in Istanbul, Turkey. Durrie, thank you so much.
BOUSCAREN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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