Turkish authorities escalated their crackdown on the opposition-run Istanbul municipality Saturday over alleged corruption charges, detaining 30 people. <\/p>\n
Those held include a former MP of the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party, or CHP, and the mayors of three CHP-run districts of Istanbul. <\/p>\n
State-run Anadolu Agency reported that the detentions were part of four separate corruption investigations involving the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. <\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s detentions are the fifth wave of a legal crackdown against the Istanbul administration since March 19, when Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested on corruption charges. <\/p>\n
The arrest of Imamoglu, who is seen as the most viable challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s 22-year rule, sparked widespread demonstrations calling for his release and an end to Turkey\u2019s democratic backsliding under Erdogan. <\/p>\n
The opposition and its supporters claim his arrest, and the subsequent arrest of dozens more from the CHP, are politically motivated. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis time the coup didn\u2019t come with boots and tanks, but with prosecutor\u2019s robes,\u201d said CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel on Saturday before a crowd of supporters in the northwestern city of Duzce. <\/p>\n
However, the government insists Turkey\u2019s judiciary is independent and free of political influence. <\/p>\n
The second crackdown on CHP-run municipalities and districts occurred in late April, and the third and fourth waves were in late May, resulting in dozens of detentions. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Turkish authorities escalated their crackdown on the opposition-run Istanbul municipality Saturday over alleged corruption charges, detaining 30 people. Those held include a former MP of the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party, or CHP, and the mayors of three CHP-run districts of Istanbul. State-run Anadolu Agency reported that the detentions were part of four separate corruption <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}