Mayors arrested in Turkey’s crackdown on opposition

Behind the bars of the mayors of the three major cities in Southern Türkiye, the media reports operated by the state are participating in the list of opposition figures that have been detained since the imprisonment in March.

According to Anadolu Agency, Adiyaman Mayor Abdurrahman Tutdere, who is the president of Adana Municipality and Zeydan Karalar, who was chaired by Adana Municipality, were arrested on Saturday in the early morning.

Both are the main opposition Republican People’s Party or a member of the CHP.

Anatolia, Antalya’s CHP Mayor Muhittin Bocek, Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor was arrested with two other suspects in a separate bribe investigation.

Karalar was arrested in Istanbul and Tutder was arrested in the capital of Ankara. Tutder said he was taken to X to Istanbul.

Ten people, including Karalar and Tutdere, were arrested by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor as a part of an investigation into the allegations of organized crime, bribery and bidding.

The details of the accusations against them were not immediately released, but the operation is following the arrest of the scores of the authorities from the municipalities controlled by the CHP in recent months.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 22 -year rule, considered the main challenge reader of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, four months ago, he was imprisoned for allegations of corruption.

The third largest city of Türkiye, Izmir, former CHP mayor and 137 municipal officials, tender-Rigging and fraud allegedly a part of an investigation was detained in the beginning of this week.

On Friday, former municipality Tunc Soyer and 59 other people were imprisoned in the trial that Soyer’s lawyer described as “an unjust, illegal and political motivated decision”.

Again on Friday, the state operated by the state by the Mediterranean holiday city in the state of Antalya Manavgat’ın CHP Mayor and the other 34 people were allegedly allegedly corruption.

CHP officials, in 2025, many of the Türkiye’s main opposition party aimed to neutralize the arrest waves faced.

The government insists independently in prosecutors and judicial action, but the arrest of Istanbul’s Imamoglu led to Türkiye’s largest street protests for more than a decade.

Imamoglu was nominated as the presidential candidate of his party after his prison sentence.

Türkiye’s next election will be in 2028, but it may come earlier.