The detention of Ekrem İmamoğlu in March 2025 has plunged Türkiye into one of its deepest political and legal crises in years, sparking mass protests and leading many to ask: Is this the very end of a – despite all the ups and downs – democratic and secular instutituonalization process having started after the announcement of the republic in 1923?Or has it immanent the potential of reorganizing the democratic public against authoritarian tendencies?
On 19 March 2025, Turkish authorities arrested Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul and a prominent figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). The charges were sweeping: corruption, extortion, money laundering, and supporting a terrorist organization — specifically, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The prosecution accused him of being the “leader of a criminal organization” and claimed that his electoral alliance with the pro-Kurdish
DEM Party during the 2024 municipal elections amounted to aiding the PKK. Just four days later, on March 23, a court ordered him sent to Marmara Prison, and the Ministry of Interior removed him from his elected office. His detention triggered massive protests across Türkiye and renewed concerns at home and abroad about democratic backsliding. Some observers have described the event as a “civil coup” — a subversion of democracy through legal and institutional means rather than by overt military force. In the following an attempt will be made to present the event’svtimeline, reactions, and potential impacts on Türkiye’s democratic trajectory.
Political Context and Precipitating Events
For many observers, the arrest did not occur in a vacuum. İmamoğlu’s political rise made him a central challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. After winning Istanbul in 2019 and again in 2024, İmamoğlu became the most tangible electoral rival to the AKP (Justice andDevelopment Party). İstanbul is Turkey’s largest city and its principal economic hub: it concentrates a disproportionate share of national GDP, foreign-direct-investment activity, industrial production and service-sector employment. As the country’s demographic and commercial center, political control of Istanbul confers administrative influence over large budgets and municipal services that have both material and symbolic value. International analyses routinely emphasise Istanbul’s decisive role in national electoral politics because municipal governance there has demonstrable effect on national political narratives, organizational capacity and public visibility. In short, control of Istanbul carries tangible policy levers and high symbolic capital within Turkish politics.
The immediate prelude to his arrest included a sudden bureaucratic move: on March 18, 2025, Istanbul University annulled his undergraduate degree on alleged irregularities in a transfer from Northern Cyprus, thereby rendering him ineligible under law to run for presidential office. Many observers saw this as a legal(istic) mechanism to block his candidacy. On the other side, the Turkish government insisted that the judiciary was acting independently. Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç criticized those linking President Erdoğan to the arrest, calling it “extremely dangerous and wrong.” Meanwhile, in the weeks leading to March, several of İmamoğlu’s aides, municipal contractors, and campaign consultants were hit with travel bans or investigations, signaling intensified pressure. On March 19, Turkish police launched a sweeping operation: more than 100 persons associated with İmamoğlu’s administration or electoral apparatus were detained. Simultaneously, authorities imposed severe restrictions in Istanbul: a four-day ban on protests, shutdowns of transport lines, barricades around key neighborhoods, and throttling of social media and video platforms. Despite the bans, thousands gathered spontaneously. In İstanbul, protestorsb congregated around the police headquarters where İmamoğlu was held, chanting pro-mayor slogans and accusing the government of staging a coup against democratic will. Some protesters invoked the notion that İmamoğlu had defeated President Erdoğan in Istanbul multiple times, arguing that his arrest was a betrayal of popular sovereignty. Security forces responded with barricades, water cannons, tear gas, and widely reported detentions. Over the first week, authorities arrested more than 1,400 people, including students, municipal workers, and journalists. Independent media outlets broadcasting protests, such as Halk TV and Tele1, were fined or threatened with license suspension. In some cases, journalists were detained on charges of “violating protest laws”.
Protests were not confined to İstanbul: significant demonstrations erupted in Ankara (notably around the Middle East Technical University), İzmir, and other major cities. The student community also organized around a newly formed coalition called the Istanbul Universities Union (İÜB), which coordinated inter-university protests and boycotts. Within the CHP, the party’s planned primary on 23 March to choose its presidential candidate went ahead. Despite İmamoğlu’s detention, he was overwhelmingly selected: 1.65 million party votes and some 13.8 million solidarity votes were cast in his favor. This symbolic show of support underlined his importance for the party’s identity.
Opposition figures sharply criticized the arrests. CHP leader Özgür Özel and other party officials branded the move a “judicial coup” against popular will, vowing resistance. İmamoğlu himself released a recorded message from custody, declaring that he would never bow and accusing the judicial system of being wielded as a weapon against democracy. Protesters echoed these sentiments, often using the phrase “civil coup” to describe the attempt to suppress the opposition through legal structures. The government, for its part, on the other hand, rejected accusations of authoritarianism and characterized the protests as attempts to destabilize national order. A key aspect of this crisis is that the question of whether İmamoğlu actually committed the crimes he is accused of has receded into the background. The public debate has largely shifted to the politicization of the law. In the eyes of many, the crucial question is no longer guilt or innocence, but rather the perception that the judiciary is being misused as an instrument to suppress political opposition. This perception is further reinforced by selective prosecution: In cities that have shifted from the AKP to the CHP—such as Istanbul, Ankara, and Mersin—the complete absence of investigations (for example, during Melih Gökçek’s tenure in Ankara) stands in stark contrast to the aggressive prosecutions of municipalities close to the CHP.This asymmetry, or “selective” prosecution, suggests that accountability depends more on political affiliation than on an impartial judiciary, due to a lack of systematic and comprehensible criteria for legal proof. Numerous high-ranking mayors from the ruling party have also faced similar corruption allegations, though without similar legal consequences. The İmamoğlu case thus represents a symbolic turning point: not only in the sense of a harsh crackdown on a single politician, but in the sense of a comprehensive struggle over whether the law in Turkey should remain an instrument of protection or become an instrument of domination.
Auhtors: Mehmet Okyayuz; Edip Hakkı Erdem