Izmir, opposition stronghold in western Turkey, targeted by wave of arrests
After Istanbul in March, it is the turn of Izmir, Turkey's third largest city, to be the target of a campaign of arrests targeting members of the CHP, the country's main opposition party.
This is a new step in the judicial crackdown on the Turkish opposition: on July 1 , a wave of arrests hit the main opposition party, the CHP [Republican People's Party, nationalist and anti-religious, created by Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the Turkish Republic], in Izmir. The Kemalist party reigns supreme in “infidel Izmir,” as the city is often nicknamed due to the low religious observance of its inhabitants. The CHP controls 28 of the 30 districts of this city of nearly 5 million inhabitants, the third largest in the country.
Among the CHP officials arrested on July 1 in Izmir was Tunç Soyer, who served as mayor of the city for ten years before being replaced by another leader of his party in the 2024 municipal elections. A new wave of arrests on July 3 brought the number of imprisonments to 137, reports the online media T24 .
As in Istanbul, where Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and most of the municipal team were arrested and detained at the end of March, these arrests are taking place on the basis of corruption charges. “This kind of trial is made possible by the denunciations and confessions that come from within these municipalities,” says the
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