As of Thursday, March 27, nearly 1,900 people have been arrested in Turkey during protests triggered by the detention of Istanbul’s opposition mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu.
This was reported by Reuters, citing Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya.
Yerlikaya stated that since the protests began last Wednesday, March 19, a total of 1,879 people have been detained.
He noted that courts have imprisoned 260 of them, 489 have been released, and cases against 662 others are still under review. Additionally, according to his report, 150 police officers were injured during the protests.
Furthermore, as Reuters reports, Turkey’s Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç, speaking to international media representatives in Istanbul, stated that Ankara had urged its European partners to act with “common sense,” adding that the seriousness of the charges against İmamoğlu justified his detention.
“We do not want to arrest any politician, but if there is evidence of wrongdoing, it can happen,” he said.
