Erdoğan defiant as Turkish protests start to morph into a movement

Emboldened by the US, Turkey's president shows no sign of giving in to growing anger over the detention of a political opponent,

- Ruth Michaelson from Istanbul

When demonstrators gathered at Istanbul's city hall last week in outrage at the arrest of mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, 26-year-old Azra said she was initially too scared to defy a ban on gatherings. As protests grew on university campuses and in cities and towns across Turkey, she could no longer resist joining.

"I saw the spark in people's eyes and the excitement on their faces, and I decided I had to come down here," she said with a grin, standing among tens of thousands that defied a ban on assembly to fill the streets around city hall on Friday night. Despite the crowds, Azra feared reprisals and declined to give her full name. Many demonstrators were masked in a bid to defy facial recognition technology and fearing the teargas or pepper spray deployed by the police. Others smiled and took selfies to celebrate as fireworks illuminated the night sky.

The arrest of the mayor of Turkey's largest city in a dawn raid last week was a watershed moment in the country's prolonged shift away from democracy. Opponents of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fear it is a move to sideline the sole challenger capable of defeating him in upcoming elections, expected before 2028.

İmamoğlu and more than 100 other people including municipal officials and the head of the mayor's construction firm were served detention orders and accused of embezzlement and corruption charges the mayor denies. He also denies terrorism charges over collaboration with a leftwing political coalition prior to local elections last year, which saw major losses for Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party (AKP).

Justice minister Yılmaz Tunç attempted to rebuff any suspicion the charges against İmamoğlu and others from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) were politicised. "Attempting to associate judicial investigations and cases with our president is, to say the least, an act of audacity and irresponsibility," he said.