Huge crowds join rally in Istanbul

Anti-govt protesters 'defend democracy'

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Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators rallied Saturday in Istanbul in a show of democracy after the arrest of mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey's worst street unrest in over a decade.

Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey's biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan.

Ozgur Ozel, leader of the main opposition party CHP which organised the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but AFP was unable to independently confirm the figure.

The mass protests, which began with Imamoglu's March 19 re-election on contested fraud and "terror" charges, have prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.

Widely seen as the only politician capable of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as CHP's candidate for the 2028 race on the day he was arrested.