Early on the morning of March 19, dozens of armed police officers appeared at my door with an arrest warrant. The scene resembled the capture of a terrorist, not the elected mayor of Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, wrote the city's arrested and ousted mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in an article written from Silivri prison and published in the “New York Times“, BTA reports.
The move – four days before my party, the Republican People's Party, held primary elections for the next presidential race – was dramatic but hardly unexpected. It came after months of escalating legal harassment against me, culminating in the sudden revocation of my university degree 31 years after I graduated. The authorities apparently believe this will disqualify me from the race, because the constitution requires that the president have a university degree.
Realizing that he could not defeat me at the ballot box, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan resorted to other means: the arrest of his main political opponent on charges of corruption, bribery, leading a criminal network, and aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), even though the charges were not supported by credible evidence. I was removed from my elected office on financial charges.
For years, Mr. Erdogan has undermined democratic checks and balances - silencing the media, replacing elected mayors with bureaucrats, marginalizing parliament, controlling the judiciary, and rigging elections. The mass arrests of protesters and journalists in recent months have sent a chilling message: no one is safe. Votes can be annulled, and freedoms – taken away at any moment. Under Mr Erdogan, the republic has become a republic of fear.
This is more than a slow erosion of democracy. This is a deliberate destruction of the institutional foundations of our republic. My arrest marks a new stage in Turkey’s slide towards authoritarianism and the use of arbitrary power. A country with a long democratic tradition now faces a serious risk of reaching a point of no return.
The crackdown did not stop with me. In a massive operation based on charges that amounted to nothing more than a collection of anonymous witness statements, police arrested almost 100 people, including senior municipal officials and businessmen. The arrests were preceded by campaigns of disinformation and smear in pro-government media.
Yet the people of Turkey responded with resistance. Despite a ban on protests and blockades of key entrances to cities, hundreds of thousands of citizens from Istanbul to the northeastern city of Rize, a traditional Erdogan stronghold, took to the streets. Within hours and in the days following my arrest, people of all ages and backgrounds joined my party. People held vigils in front of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality despite the increasingly harsh measures and arrests.
Despite the repression, the Republican People’s Party successfully held its presidential primary on Sunday. The party’s voter lists showed that 15 million people, including 1.7 million registered party members, cast their votes for me as the party’s presidential candidate.
Since my election as mayor in 2019 I have faced nearly 100 investigations and dozens of lawsuits. From the unconvincing to the absurd, each of the charges was part of a broader effort to wear me down, prevent me from serving the people who elected me, remove me from office, and eliminate me as a rival to Mr. Erdogan.
I have already run against candidates supported by Mr. Erdogan three times - twice in local elections in Istanbul and once last year - when he personally campaigned against me. And I have won each time. Now, unable to defeat me in an election, he is using his control of the justice system to remove from his path a rival who - according to recent polls - could win if the election were held today.
Why are so many people taking to the streets in the biggest demonstrations since the Gezi Park protests of 2013?
Amid growing injustice and a struggling economy, public discontent in Turkey has reached a boiling point. People are speaking out and rallying around me – a candidate who promises inclusion, justice and hope for a better future. They will not be silenced. But society also sees my arrest as an attempt to push Turkey further down the path of authoritarianism.
Even in the face of repression, signs of solidarity persist. Social democratic leaders and mayors across Turkey and beyond, from Amsterdam to Zagreb, expressed their support with courage and principle after my arrest. Civil society did not waver either. But (what can we say about) central governments around the world? Their silence is deafening. Washington has only expressed “concern about recent arrests and protests” in Turkey. With few exceptions, European leaders have not come up with a strong response.
What is happening in Turkey and many other parts of the world shows that democracy, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms cannot survive in silence, nor be sacrificed for diplomatic convenience disguised as “Realpolitik.”
It cannot be denied that recent events – Russia’s war in Ukraine, the overthrow of the Assad regime in our neighbor Syria, and the devastation in Gaza – have heightened Turkey’s strategic importance, not least in view of its crucial capacity to contribute to European security. However, geopolitics must not blind us to the erosion of values, especially human rights abuses. Otherwise, we legitimize those who are destroying the rules-based global order, brick by brick.
The survival of democracy in Turkey is crucial not only for its people but also for the future of democracy around the world. The age of unchecked strongmen demands that those who believe in democracy be as vocal, insistent, and unwavering as their opponents. The fate of democracy depends on the courage of students, workers, other citizens, unions, and elected officials – those who refuse to be silent when institutions break down. I believe in the people in Turkey and beyond who are fighting for justice and democracy.