Turkish authorities detain 109 in Izmir as part of corruption investigation

Irish Times

3 days ago

Turkish
authorities detained 109 people, including opposition party members and a former mayor, on Tuesday in Izmir, the Anadolu state news agency said, expanding a months-long legal crackdown on the opposition that had been focused on Istanbul.
The Izmir prosecutor ordered the detention of a total of 157 people in the early morning hours as part of an investigation into corruption, tender rigging and fraud in the western coastal city, Anadolu reported. Police are continuing efforts to find the remaining 48 people, it added.
Murat Bakan, an Izmir politician from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) – which has faced waves of arrests since late last year – said former Izmir mayor Tunc Soyer had been detained along with senior officials and a provincial chairman of the party.
'We woke up to another dawn operation today. We are facing a process similar to what happened in Istanbul,' Bakan said on X, adding that the judicial system appeared to be 'acting on instructions'.
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Those arrested in Turkey's broader crackdown include Istanbul mayor
Ekrem Imamoglu
, the main political rival of president
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
. Mr Imamoglu was jailed in March pending trial on corruption charges, which he denies. That sparked the largest street protests in a decade and a sharp sell-off in Turkish assets.
The CHP denies the charges levelled against it. Along with some western countries, the CHP and rights groups have called the crackdown a politicised move to eliminate electoral challenges to Erdogan and silence dissent.
The government denies these claims, saying Turkey's judiciary and courts are independent.
According to the prosecutor's statement published by Anadolu news, the investigation into Izmir municipality found that irregularities in tenders and expenses involving subcontractor companies had caused public loss.
Meanwhile, a cartoon in a Turkish satirical magazine depicting what appeared to be prophets Muhammad and Moses was an 'Islamophobic hate crime', the spokesperson for Mr Erdogan's ruling party said on Tuesday.
The comments amplify a wave of official condemnation a day after four cartoonists at the Leman magazine were detained over the drawing.
The cartoon, published a few days after the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, appears to show Muhammad, who Muslims believe is the final prophet, and Moses, one of Judaism's most important prophets, shaking hands in the sky while missiles fly below in a wartime scene.
It was also criticised by religious conservatives, even as the magazine apologised to readers who felt offended and said it had been misunderstood.
More than 200 people arrived to protest against Leman in central Istanbul on Tuesday, despite a ban on gatherings and heavy police presence.
'This has nothing to do with art, ideas, freedom of expression or artistic freedom,' Omer Celik, the ruling AK Party spokesperson, told reporters in Ankara.
'In our view, this is a hate crime – an act of hostility directly targeting Islam, prophet Moses and our prophet.'
Mr Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted AK Party regularly criticise what they call Islamophobic acts in secular Turkey and across Europe. Muslims see depictions of the prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.
In a statement on X, Leman said 'the work does not refer to the prophet Muhammad in any way'.
The cartoonist, Dogan Pehlevan, had sought to highlight 'the suffering of a Muslim man killed in Israeli attacks', it said, adding there was no intent to insult Islam or its prophet.
The magazine urged authorities to counter what it called a smear campaign and to protect freedom of expression.
Several civil society groups condemned the detentions, calling them a violation of freedom of thought and expression.
Turkey's freedom of expression ranking is low due to restrictions on media and public discourse. Reporters Without Borders ranked it 158th out of 180 countries in its 2024 Press Freedom Index.
Late on Monday, interior minister Ali Yerlikaya shared a video on X showing police officers detaining Mr Pehlevan with his hands cuffed behind his back as he was dragged up a stairwell.
He also shared videos of three other men being removed from their homes and dragged into vans, one of them barefoot.
'The individual who drew this vile image, DP, has been apprehended and taken into custody. These shameless people will be held accountable before the law,' Mr Yerlikaya wrote.
The government said an inquiry was launched under a penal code article that criminalises incitement to hatred and enmity, and that detention orders had been issued for six people in total. – Reuters