The protest entered its second week in Türkiye where the authorities, faced with demonstrations of unprecedented scale for twelve years, ordered the release of eight journalists arrested on Thursday for having covered prohibited rallies.
• Read also: (In pictures) Türkiye: the dispute continues after the imprisonment of the mayor of Opposition of Istanbul
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Among them is the photographer of the agency France-Presse Yasin Akgül, arrested Monday at dawn at his home in Istanbul and imprisoned since Tuesday.
The wave of protest was launched by the arrest for “corruption” on March 19 of the popular opposition mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, principal rival of President Rece Tayyip Erdogan.
AFP
In the capital Ankara, medical students and some of their teachers again demonstrated on Thursday, denouncing government policy.
In Istanbul, where the dispute is the most lively, students must also go down the streets at the end of the day, after a quieter evening than the previous days on Wednesday, AFP journalists found.
1,879 arrests
A student coordination of Istanbul called for a demonstration at 6:30 p.m. in a arrondissement, the mayor of which was also arrested and removed from his duties, and where thousands of young people had paraded Tuesday under the applause of residents, the faces often masked for fear of being identified by the police.
AFP
The Republican People’s Party (CHP, Social Democrat), the main opposition force, which hitherto invited tens of thousands of people to come together in front of the town hall of Istanbul, has stopped doing so, calling for a very large gathering on Saturday in the city.
On Wednesday, the municipal council of Istanbul elected an acting mayor, Nuri Aslan, also a member of the CHP, replacing Mr. Imamoglu, seeming to dismiss the hypothesis of the appointment by the state of an administrator at the head of the Turkish economic capital.
President Erdogan, who hardened the tone against the opposition on Wednesday, suggesting that new corruption surveys could fall into the CHP, said on several occasions that he would not give in to “street terror”.
The authorities, who have prohibited rallies in several major cities in the country, and that 150 police officers have been injured since March 19, announced Thursday that they had arrested 1,879 people since the start of the wave of protest.
Among them, 260 have been imprisoned or are being incarcerated, while more than 950 have been released, including almost half under judicial supervision.
“Status of law”
Two journalists arrested in Izmir (west), the third city in the country and bastion of the opposition, are still in police custody on Thursday, according to an NGO.
The Turkish justice, on the other hand, ordered the release of eight journalists arrested on Monday morning in Istanbul and Izmir, accused of having taken part in illegal rallies that they say they have simply covered on Thursday.
Six of the seven of the incarcerated stambouliped journalists were released on Thursday at midday, while the AFP photographer, detained in another city prison, must be in the coming hours, according to his lawyer.
Mr. Akgül will not be placed under judicial supervision, said his lawyer to AFP, adding that the charges weighing against him were not lifted.
The arrest of these journalists had aroused international convictions, Paris and the UN saying “concerned”.
The NGO Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said it was “relieved” by the announcement of the release of the eight journalists, demanding the release of the other two in the hands of the authorities in Izmir.
During a meeting with the press Thursday in Istanbul, the Turkish justice minister Yilmaz Tunç, said that Turkish justice was independent and impartial, repeating that Turkey is a “rule of law”.
The arrest of Mr. Imamoglu is not “political”, he assured.