"I don't have judges to protect me, but behind me are 16 million residents of Istanbul."
Imamaulu, this evening (Photo: Reuters)
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered this evening (Thursday) in Istanbul for a rally in support of the city's mayor, Akram Imamulu, a day after he was convicted by a court of insulting public servants and sent to more than two and a half years in prison.
The mayor, a member of the largest opposition party, and his supporters see the sentence handed down to him as a political decision designed to harm his chances of running in the June elections against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"I am absolutely not afraid of their illegitimate sentence," the mayor told his supporters, who waved Turkish flags under the pouring rain.
"I don't have judges to protect me, but behind me stand 16 million residents of Istanbul and our nation."
Next to him appeared on the stage the leaders of six opposition parties, united under one coalition in order to replace Erdogan.
Imamoulu, who belongs to the Republican People's Party, is expected to challenge the sentence in a process that is expected to continue beyond the presidential and parliamentary elections in June.
The mayor of Turkey's most populous city has also been removed from political life, but the sentence will not take effect until it is confirmed by all legal courts.
The verdict united the divided opposition.
Supporters of the mayor at a rally in Istanbul, this evening (Photo: Reuters)
The opposition alliance, which had not yet chosen an agreed candidate for the elections, suffered from internal conflicts, but the punishment handed down to the mayor united it and it was the first political event in which all its leaders participated.
In addition to this, the large number of participants in today's demonstration was similar to the number of people who come to the campaign rallies that Erdogan holds almost every week.
According to Turkish media reports, several hundred people attended a separate rally in Imamoglu's hometown of Trabzon, on the Black Sea coast.
Next year's elections, which will be held for both the presidency and the parliament, are expected to be the biggest challenge faced by Erdogan, who wants to extend his rule into his third decade.
Erdogan's popularity has been damaged by the collapse of the pound and inflation which has taken a heavy toll on the citizens.
Under Erdogan's two-decade rule, many freedoms in Turkey were eroded, including freedom of speech.
Imamoglu was elected to lead Istanbul in March 2019, and his victory dealt a historic blow to Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, which has ruled Istanbul for a quarter of a century.
The ruling party worked to annul the election results in the city, where 16 million residents live, citing irregularities.
She was successful in her appeal and new elections were held a few months later, but Imamoulu won again.
He was convicted of insulting senior public servants on the grounds that on November 4, 2019 he described the annulment of the results of the first elections as an act of "stupidity".
The mayor denied that he insulted the members of the election committee, and he insisted that his words were a response to Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu calling him "stupid" and accusing Imamoulu of criticizing the country during a visit to the European Parliament.
However, the court accepted Soylu's version, according to which the mayor's words were directed at the members of the election committee, who annulled his original victory for mayor of Istanbul.
Erdogan, who also served as mayor of Istanbul before he began leading Turkey in 2002, was briefly jailed in 1999 for reciting a poem that a court ruled was incitement to religious hatred.
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The sentence may come back to him like a boomerang.
Erdogan at a meeting in Istanbul, last month (Photo: Reuters)
The West condemned the court's decision.
The United States said it was "deeply disappointed and troubled" by the sentence, which a State Department spokesman in Washington described as "unjust."
He added that the sentence "is not consistent with respect for human rights, basic freedoms and the rule of law."
The commissioner on behalf of the European Parliament for monitoring the situation in Turkey expressed astonishment at the "unfathomable" punishment.
"Justice in Turkey is in a catastrophic state and it is being blatantly used for political purposes. This is a very sad day," wrote the commissioner, N'zao Sánchez Amor, on Twitter.
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