The charges against Ekrem Imamoglu, who was found guilty of “openly insulting public officials”, are based on comments he made about 10 members of the Supreme Electoral Council during the 2019 mayoral elections.
The mayor of the Turkish city of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, was sentenced on Wednesday to two years, seven months and 15 days in prison after being found guilty of “openly insulting public officials” in 2019, reports Anadolu agency.
Article 53 of the Turkish Penal Code was also applied to Imamoglu. According to the law, a person sentenced to prison for an intentional crime may not hold public office in the future. However, the sentence awaits confirmation by an appeal court.
“Today’s verdict is an attack on the will of millions of Istanbulites who democratically elected a mayor for their city three years ago. But nothing ends here,” stated Imamoglu on his Twitter account, announcing a demonstration between his supporters and the city’s residents this Thursday.
The accusations against Imamoglu, a member of the opposition Republican People’s Party, are based on comments he made about 10 members of the Supreme Electoral Council during the 2019 mayoral election. He initially defeated a candidate from the ruling party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. , becoming the first opposition mayor in the country’s largest city for the first time in decades.
However, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party challenged the results, so the vote was annulled by the electoral council. For his part, Imamoglu won the rerun of the vote, declaring that the people “who canceled the March 31 election are fools.”
Critics of the current authorities believe that the prosecution of Imamoglu, who is believed to be Erdogan’s political rival, is a covert attempt to prevent him from running in next year’s elections, since if the sentence is upheld, the current mayor will lose the possibility of being an opposition candidate. In Turkey, however, such convictions do not always bar the possibility of holding high office, as Erdogan himself, who was mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, was ousted and jailed after a court ruled that a poem he recited during a speech had incited religious hatred.
Source: RT
