ANKARA: Turkish authorities detained on Thursday a lawyer for jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest political rival.

Imamoglu, who leads Erdogan in some polls, was jailed on Sunday pending trial on graft allegations, provoking the largest anti-government protests in a decade that led to mass arrests nationwide.

Mehmet Pehlivan, a lawyer who defended Imamoglu in the latest investigation, was detained “for fabricated reasons”, Turan Taskin Ozer, an MP from the opposition said in a post on X.

Meanwhile, the US secretary of state said on Friday that he had communicated Washington’s concerns over arrests and crackdown on protesters to Turkish authorities.

“We’re watching, we’ve expressed concern, we don’t like to see instability like that in the governance of any country that’s such a close ally, especially,” Rubio told reporters on an aeroplane returning to Washington.

Private broadcaster Haberturk reported that the lawyer was detained on charges of “laundering assets derived from a criminal act”.

Imamoglu, who has been temporarily dismissed from his job because of the case, demanded the immediate release of his lawyer.

US secretary of state expresses concern over the situation in Turkiye

“As if the coup on democracy wasn’t enough, they can’t stand the victims of this coup defending themselves,” Imamoglu said on X.

Imamoglu’s CHP, other opposition parties, rights groups and Western powers have all said the case against the mayor was a politicised effort to eliminate a potential electoral threat to Erdogan.

The government denies any influence over the judiciary and says the courts are independent.

Two journalists detained

Separately, two journalists who covered the anti-government protests in Istanbul were detained early on Friday, the Journalists’ Union of Turkiye said.

The detention of the journalists came a day after a Turkish court freed seven other journalists, including an Agence France-Presse photojournalist Yasin Akgul, who were earlier jailed for “attending an illegal march” while covering last week’s mass protests.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2025