Dozens of people appear in court following banned demos in Turkey
Almost 200 people are on trial in connection with the protests following the arrest of opposition politician Ekrem İmamoğlu in Istanbul last month, including eight journalists.
The 189 defendants are accused of violating the ban on demonstrations and gatherings.
Among the journalists is a photographer from the French news agency AFP, the Turkish lawyers' association MLSA wrote on X on Friday.
A demand by the lawyers at the start of the trial for an immediate acquittal was denied.
The court decided to separate the case of the journalists and some lawyers from the main proceedings. Many of the defendants are students. Countless demonstrators were detained during the protests.
The arrest of İmamoğlu, who was mayor of Istanbul, and who is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's most prominent political rival, plunged Turkey into its biggest domestic crisis in years.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in mass protests against the government, despite a ban on demonstrations and gatherings in many cities.
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