ISTANBUL: Thousands of protesters returned to the streets of Istanbul on Tuesday after a week of the biggest protests to hit Türkiye in over a decade, defying a crackdown that has seen almost 1,500 arrested.
The demonstrations erupted after the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, the main political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a move opposition supporters see as a blatant violation of the rule of law.
The authorities have hit back with a crackdown that has alarmed rights groups, with seven journalists who covered the protests remanded in custody by an Istanbul court on Tuesday.
Among them was AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, drawing a sharp rebuke from the Paris-based news agency.
“His imprisonment is unacceptable. This is why I am asking you to intervene as quickly as possible to obtain the rapid release of our journalist,” the agency’s CEO and chairman Fabrice Fries said in a letter to the Turkish presidency.
The court charged Akgul, 35, and the others with “taking part in illegal rallies and marches,” though Fries said Akgul was “not part of the protest” but only covering it as a journalist.
Media freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced the decision as “scandalous,” with its Türkiye representative Erol Onderoglu saying it “reflects a very serious situation in Turkiye.”
Vast crowds have defied a protest ban to hit the streets daily since the Mar. 19 arrest of Imamoglu, with the unrest spreading across Türkiye and prompting nightly clashes with security forces.
In the face of the biggest protests in Türkiye since the 2013 Gezi uprising over the redevelopment of an Istanbul park, Erdogan has remained defiant, denouncing the rallies as “street terror.”
“Those who spread terror in the streets and want to set fire to this country have nowhere to go. The path they have taken is a dead end,” Erdogan, who has now ruled the NATO member for a quarter of a century, said on Tuesday.
But as he spoke thousands of students marched through the Sisli district of Istanbul, whose mayor Resul Emrah Sahan was jailed in the same case as Imamoglu, heading for the district’s municipal headquarters.
They chanted “government, resign!” and waved flags and banners with slogans including “Tayyip resign!” as a large deployment of riot police watched, while people in apartments above bashed pots to show their approval.
Many had their faces covered with scarves or masks, and acknowledged they feared being identified by the police.
“We can’t express ourselves freely,” a student who gave her name as Nisa told AFP, saying she nonetheless joined the protest “to defend democracy.”
Separately, thousands also rallied for the seventh straight night in a protest organized by Imamoglu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the Sarachane district, home of the Istanbul city hall that Imamoglu ran since 2019.
Girding for what could be a long standoff, CHP leader Ozgur Ozel called a mass rally for Saturday in Istanbul that he said would be the “largest open-air referendum in history” and would press for early elections.
“Are you ready for a big rally in a large square in Istanbul on Saturday to support Imamoglu, to object to his arrest, to demand transparent, open trials, to say we have had enough and we want early elections?” Ozel asked protesters, telling them the rally would be held in the vast Maltepe grounds on the Asian side of Istanbul.
In a possible change of tactics to focus efforts on Saturday’s rally, he said he would not call for another Sarachane protest on Wednesday.
With riot police using water cannon, pepper spray and rubber bullets against protesters, the Council of Europe denounced a “disproportionate” use of force while Human Rights Watch said it was a “dark time for democracy” in Türkiye.
The United Nations also voiced alarm at Türkiye’s use of mass detentions and its “unlawful blanket ban on protests,” urging the authorities to probe any unlawful use of force.
By Tuesday, police had detained 1,418 suspects for taking part in “illegal demonstrations,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X, warning there would be “no concessions” for those who “terrorize the streets.”
But Ozel told the Sarachane crowd: “We do not decrease in numbers with arrests — there will be even more of us.”
He added the extent of the crackdown was such that there was “no room left in Istanbul prisons.”
Turkiye protesters fill streets, defying crackdown
https://arab.news/vkrb4
Turkiye protesters fill streets, defying crackdown
- Vast crowds have defied a protest ban to hit the streets daily since the Mar. 19
- Students chanted “government, resign!” and waved flags and banners with slogans including “Tayyip resign!“
Jordan reopens airspace after overnight Israel-Iran attacks
AMMAN: Jordan announced the reopening of its airspace Sunday morning after a night of attacks by arch-foes Israel and Iran.
The civil aviation authority in Jordan, which borders Israel, said in a statement that the country’s airspace had been reopened “for civilian flights following a careful risk assessment.”
The kingdom had closed the airspace late Saturday, its second closure since the start of the most intense direct confrontation between Israel and Iran.
Israel’s goal might be regime change in Iran: Experts
- Iran’s leadership will define victory as being its ‘survival’: Middle East Institute senior fellow
- Ex-US Navy commander: ‘It’s a long shot that they’ll come to the (negotiating) table in the near future’
CHICAGO: Israel’s military assault against Iran could continue for weeks, with the possible goal of regime change, a panel of experts hosted by the Middle East Institute said on Saturday.
Panelists included retired Gen. Joseph L. Votel, former commander of US Central Command; retired Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, former commander of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet; and Alex Vatanka, MEI senior fellow and Iran specialist who also teaches at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Vatanka said it is too early to determine if Israel’s main goal besides crippling Iran’s nuclear program is regime change, but “we might be going in (that) direction.”
He added: “That’s certainly what I think a majority of Iranian officials think that Israel wants. The big unknown in all of this is whether the Israelis somehow can get (US President Donald) Trump to buy into it the way he bought into the initial attack on Iran.”
Israel has launched attacks against an array of Iranian targets, including its military leadership and nuclear program. Tehran has responded by launching missiles and drones at Israel.
The panelists were in agreement in their belief that the conflict would not expand to include other countries.
Iran’s leadership will define victory as being its “survival,” Vatanka said, adding that while Israel has the backing of the US and “most of Europe,” Tehran “isn’t getting any help from anyone.”
He said: “I don’t think they’re getting help from what’s left of the axis of resistance … I question what the axis of resistance members can actually do at this point.”
Its members include Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been severely weakened by Israel’s military, and the Houthis in Yemen. It included Syria until the fall of President Bashar Assad in December.
Donegan said: “I think the question is, does Iran think they’ve done enough in terms of lashing back that they can throw an olive branch to get some talks going again? I think it’s a long shot, to be honest, that they’ll come to the table in the near future.”
Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, but “the problem with closing Hormuz is they then don’t get the economic benefit of flowing their oil out,” he added.
The end game will be defined by how far Israel intends to go with its war, the panelists said.
“The Americans are playing the good cop here. President Trump has kept the door for diplomacy open,” Vatanka said.
“The Israelis are playing the bad cop, saying, ‘If you don’t give Trump what he wants then we’ll come after you.’”
Iran FM accuses UN Security Council of ‘indifference’ over Israel attacks
- Abbas Araghchi: Tehran has evidence to show US forces supported the intense bombardment campaign
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi slammed the United Nations Security Council on Sunday, accusing it of “indifference” over Israel’s deadly attacks on the Islamic republic.
In a meeting with foreign diplomats broadcast on state TV, Araghchi said the Israeli attack “is being met with indifference at the Security Council,” adding that Western governments have “condemned Iran instead of Israel despite it being the side that was violated.”
Araghchi also said Tehran had evidence to show US forces supported the intense bombardment campaign Israel launched against the Islamis republic this week.
“We have solid proof of the support of the American forces and American bases in the region for the attacks of the Zionist regime military forces,” Araghchi said.
Yemen’s Houthis target Israel with ballistic missiles in coordination with Iran
- The group has been launching attacks against Israel, most of which have been intercepted
CAIRO: Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Sunday that they targeted central Israel’s Jaffa with several ballistic missiles in the last 24 hours in coordination with Iran, as Israel and Iran continued to exchange missile attacks.
The group has been launching attacks against Israel, most of which have been intercepted, in what they say is support for Palestinians in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war there.
Israeli fire and airstrikes kill 35 in Gaza
- Hamas, which denies Israeli charges that it steals aid, accused Israel of “employing hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution sites into traps of mass deaths of innocent civilians”
GAZA: Israeli fire and airstrikes killed at least 35 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, most of them near an aid distribution site operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, local health authorities said.
Medics at Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals in central Gaza areas, where most of the casualties were moved to, said at least 15 people were killed as they tried to approach the GHF aid distribution site near the Netzarim corridor.
The rest were killed in separate attacks across the enclave, they added.
BACKGROUND
The Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that at least 274 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,000 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations.
There has been no immediate comment by the Israeli military or the GHF on Saturday’s incidents.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral.
The Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that at least 274 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,000 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations in Gaza.
Hamas, which denies Israeli charges that it steals aid, accused Israel of “employing hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution sites into traps of mass deaths of innocent civilians.”
Later on Saturday, health officials at Shifa Hospital in Gaza said Israeli fire killed at least 12 Palestinians, who gathered to wait for aid trucks along the coastal road north of the strip, taking Saturday’s death toll to at least 35.
The Israeli military ordered residents of Khan Younis and the nearby towns of Abassan and Bani Suhaila in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and head west toward the so-called humanitarian zone, saying it would forcefully work against “terror organizations” in the area.
The war in Gaza erupted 20 months ago after militants raided Israel and took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s single deadliest day.
Israel’s military campaign has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than 2 million people.
Most of the population is displaced, and malnutrition is widespread.
Despite efforts by the US, Egypt, and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal.
