Sawt Falasteen - Turkey opposition pushes for early polls as Swedish reporter jailed

The arrest on March 19 of Istanbul's opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, on corruption charges his supporters say are false, sparked the most significant anti-government protests in Turkey in over a decade in a major test for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

After over a week of nighttime street protests, the Republican People's Party (CHP) on Saturday mobilised hundreds of thousands of people for a giant rally in Istanbul calling for the release of Imamoglu.

He was seen as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Erdogan at the ballot box after almost a quarter of a century in power with the president showing no sign of wishing to step aside ahead of elections due by 2028.

With Turkey entering several days of public holiday marking the end of the Ramadan Muslim fasting month, the opposition has vowed to keep up the protest movement while switching tactics to more focused events.

CHP party leader Ozgur Ozel, a former pharmacist who has stepped in as the party's main public flagbearer as Imamoglu languishes in Silivri prison in Istanbul, launched a campaign to gather signatures for a petition calling for Imamoglu's release and early elections.

"God is my witness that Ekrem Imamoglu's crime is to be Tayyip Erdogan's rival," Ozel said as he began the drive in the now suspended mayor's home Black Sea region in eastern Turkey.

On Saturday, Ozel announced that protests would be held in a different one of Turkey's 81 provinces every weekend and a different district of Istanbul every Wednesday.

"Those who think that we will not be able to celebrate the holiday are very wrong! Because we will definitely find a way to be together!" Imamoglu said in a message from prison transmitted through his lawyers on X.

- 'Strength to defeat him' -

The government has responded to the protests with a crackdown that has troubled the NATO member's allies and rights groups, with dozens of young people spending the holiday behind bars, journalists detained and foreign reporters held or deported.

On Sunday, Ozel later returned to Istanbul to visit Imamoglu and dozens of other younger people detained in Silivri prison, vowing to "bring to account" those responsible.

"This country will be as democratic as Germany," he vowed.

Imamoglu's adviser Mahir Polat, who has been arrested in the same case, has meanwhile been hospitalised with a heart condition, his lawyer Erkam Erdem was quoted as saying by the Cumhuriyet newspaper.

Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who works for the Dagens ETC newspaper, was arrested on his arrival in Turkey to cover the protests Thursday. He is being held on terror-related charges and for "insulting the president", the Turkish presidency said.

His newspaper's editor in chief, Andreas Gustavsson, described the accusations as "absurd", telling AFP that "practicing journalism should not be a crime".

Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenegard told public radio his case was an "absolute priority" and vowed to raise it with her Turkish counterpart.

Turkish authorities accuse Medin of taking part in a demonstration by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Stockholm in January 2023 during which a puppet representing Erdogan was mocked.

But his wife Sofie Axelsson said: "The accusations are false, he is a journalist, nothing else."

- 'They are rising up' -

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Thursday 1,879 people had been detained in connection with the protests since March 19, with 260 of them remanded in custody pending trial.

Father Sinan Karahan said he would for the first time be spending the holiday without his 22-year-old son Sinan Can, a university student, who was sent to Silivri prison after being arrested in an Istanbul protest.

"These children were born when this party was in power, grew up under this government. They are not happy with its practices and they are rising up," he told AFP, saying he had visited his son in prison on Friday and he was in good health.

Erdogan has previously branded the demonstrations "street terror". Authorities have used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.

Marta Kos, enlargement commissioner of the EU, which Turkey still officially wants to join, said the arrests and deportations of journalists go against Turkey's "commitments and democratic tradition".

"Freedom of assembly is a fundamental right" the Turkish authorities have committed to in their quest to join the bloc, she added.

X.Habash--SF-PST