Turkey: more than 2,000 years in jail for Imamoğlu?
Just under eight months after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, President Erdoğan's main political rival, Turkish prosecutors have charged him with offences that could carry a penalty of up to 2,430 years in prison. The charges include corruption and leading a criminal organisation. The arrest of the CHP politician last spring triggered mass protests across the country.
Presumed guilty
The only offence that can be gleaned from the indictment is that İmamoğlu was acting as mayor, Cumhuriyet comments:
“The approach taken in the indictment shows that every step İmamoğlu took to win the election is being treated as a criminal act. ... At this point, the following can be said about the general tenor of the indictment: it is a text that reeks of politics. From the language to the content, the boundaries of jurisprudence have been crossed. The presumption of innocence has been replaced by the presumption of guilt. Beyond the months of accusations levelled by the pro-government media there appear to be no new findings.”
Political ambitions deemed a crime
If aspiring to political power is a criminal offence then Erdoğan should also have been charged, Journalist Timur Soykan fumes in Birgün:
“Why is the desire to become president considered a crime? ... Don't thousands of people in Turkey and around the world dream of gaining political power? Is it a crime to engage in politics in order to do so? Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, has had a political career that has taken him from mayor of Istanbul to president. Is that a crime? The public prosecutor's office has listed dozens of offences relating to the definition of a criminal organisation that aims for the presidency and then presented them as evidence of such an organisation.”
Erdoğan wants to eliminate opponents
Tages-Anzeiger suspects the Turkish president wants to reshape the country in his image and get rid of his opponents once and for all:
“Erdogan wanted to be a kind of second founder of the republic, to create something completely new in which the political forces of the old era would no longer have a place. The fact that the CHP, the oldest party in the country, has become so strong, winning virtually all the major cities in local elections, must be really gnawing at Erdoğan. From what we know of his mindset this must seem like a defeat to him: the old republic is still there. He has not yet been able to completely eliminate it. Two thousand years in prison for Ekrem İmamoğlu- what does this mean? That Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to build a wall around his opponents once and for all. One that may even outlive him.”
Build bridges for the democrats
Maximilian Popp, former Turkey correspondent for Der Spiegel, calls for a clear stance from Germany:
“Precisely because Turkey is so important for Germany and Europe, it deserves to be taken seriously. And that means not only, but also, repeatedly addressing the decline of democracy there, meeting with representatives of civil society (as Merz did recently), and building bridges with Europe for Turkish democrats. When the Turkish president imprisons his main rival on flimsy grounds, the chancellor must find the words to respond.”