The state-run Anadolu Agency said prosecutors issued detention warrants for the mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, and some 100 other people. Among those detained was Imamoglu’s close aide, Murat Ongun.
The TKP stresses out that the class, ideological and political differences with Imamoglu are not an obstacle for the Party's stance to condemn the authoritarian attack of Erdogan's government towards its political rivals.
More specifically, the Party's statement reads:
"The detention decision made this morning regarding more than 100 people, including Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Journalist İsmail Saymaz, is unacceptable. The decisions of the Istanbul Governorship, which effectively imposed a state of emergency on Istanbul with the concern of preventing possible reactions from the public, are also part of this unacceptable picture.
Oppression and lawlessness are insufficient to describe what is happening. We are faced with a reactionary mentality that perceives the people's right and will to organize and engage in politics as a threat and its practices that disregard justice. The AKP government, which represents all the darkness of this order of sects and holdings, cannot govern, and because it cannot govern, it becomes aggressive.
The successive steps taken against İmamoğlu, regardless of their content, point to one thing: The AKP has no tolerance for the people's right to vote and be elected if it is against them.
The detention of journalist İsmail Saymaz by associating him with the Gezi Resistance means nothing more than ignoring the people's right to engage in politics and have a say in the country's governance.
The people's will that emerged during the Gezi Resistance could not be exploited despite all attempts by international powers or the AKP government's own partners; the defense of the Republic, secularism and independence could not be overshadowed. Moreover, the "Arab Spring" that the Gezi Resistance was associated with is a part of the imperialist plans and interventions in our region in which the AKP is also involved and approved; and Soros is the name of an international capital organization with which the AKP and its one-time partner, the Fethullah Gülen sect, openly cooperated in order to liquidate the Republic in Turkey.
Defending the people’s right to organize and engage in politics is the strongest response that can be given against these irrational impositions.
Our party, which has taken an unwavering stance against the AKP since the very beginning, stands against these reckless attacks of the government on the political arena. Our distance from the class, political and ideological line represented by Ekrem İmamoğlu is not an obstacle to this stance of our party. The TKP will stand against all attempts of the AKP, which has apparently decided to increase the intensity of its political and legal attacks, to usurp the universal right to vote and narrow the political arena, and will review its political calendar and priorities accordingly.
Everyone detained today, especially Ekrem İmamoğlu and İsmail Saymaz, should be released immediately.
We call on our people to organize against the AKP tyranny; to strengthen the Republican, statist, enlightened and patriotic options of the working people against the system that is experiencing an increasingly deepening crisis of governance".