Turkey Rounds Up More Opposition Mayors

The mayors of three major cities in southern Turkey were arrested on Saturday, state-run media reported, joining a growing list of opposition figures detained since the mayor of Istanbul was imprisoned in March. Abdurrahman Tutdere, the mayor of Adiyaman, and Zeydan Karalar, who heads the Adana municipality, were detained in early morning raids, according to Anadolu Agency. Both are members of the main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP, per the AP. The CHP mayor of Antalya, Muhittin Bocek, was arrested with two other suspects in a separate bribery investigation by the Antalya chief public prosecutor's Office, Anadolu reported.

CHP officials have faced waves of arrests this year that many consider aimed at neutralizing Turkey's main opposition party. The government insists prosecutors and the judiciary act independently, but the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu led to the largest street protests Turkey has seen in more than a decade, per the AP. Police also carried out searches at the municipal offices in Adana and Adiyaman. Eleven people, including Karalar and Tutdere, were arrested as part of an investigation by the Istanbul chief public prosecutor's office into allegations involving organized crime, bribery and bid-rigging. In a statement, the office said the evidence against Karalar and Tutdere had been supplied by a businessman who cooperated with prosecutors following his detention for running a criminal organization and paying bribes

The mayors had "requested unfair financial benefits from company executives doing business with the municipality," prosecutors added. The detentions follow the arrests of scores of officials from municipalities controlled by the CHP in recent months. The CHP mayor of Ankara questioned why municipalities controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party were not subjected to the same level of judicial scrutiny as opposition politicians. "In a system where the law is bent and twisted according to politics, where justice is applied to one group and ignored by another, no one should expect us to trust the rule of law or believe in justice," Mansur Yavas posted on X. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc condemned "irresponsible accusations that directly harm the impartiality and independence of the judiciary and aim to undermine it."