Pars Today – The Turkish minister of interior announced that 43 protesters have been detained and said, “The detainees insulted the president.”
According to Pars Today, Ali Yerlikaya, Minister of Interior of Turkey, announced on Tuesday, “The police of the country has arrested 43 of those who were persuading others for illegal actions.”
Pointing to insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family by some protesters, Yerlikaya said, “The police will embark on arresting other suspects, too.”
He had also announced on Monday that 1,133 protesters have been arrested during the recent days across Turkey.
A press syndicate in Turkey announced that the police had assaulted the houses of 11 journalists and photojournalists on Monday and detained them for giving coverage to the news of protests.
Meanwhile, Financial Times informed last week of investors fleeing the Turkish market and wrote that The Central Bank of Turkey has been forced to inject billions of dollars of its exchange reserves into the market to strengthen Lira (Turkish currency).
Street protests of recent days in Turkey have been unprecedented in the country for decades. These protests were triggered after the issuance of the verdict to imprison the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu.
Imamoglu, as the main rival of Erdogan during the presidential campaigns, has been accused of corruption though he has strongly ruled out the accusation.
Özgür Özel, Leader of the main opposition in Turkey (Republican People’s Party) which Imamoglu is a member of, called for boycotting the pro-Erdogan government media and institutions among hundreds of thousands of the party’s advocates in Istanbul on Sunday evening.
A broad number of the mainstream media in Turkey are the advocates of the government and the protesters say that big news channels in the country have given little coverage to the images of the nationwide demonstrations.
The Sunday decision of the court to depose Imamoglu and imprison him has ignited protests across the country.
He considers these protests as politically motivated and anti-democratic, whereas the government has rejected all of them.
In the same regard, some news sources informed of severe crack-down on the opposition by the Turkish police, while Erdogan government has informed of banning the commutation of citizens in Istanbul.
On the other hand, the United Nations expressed concern on Tuesday over extensive detentions in Turkey and warned that it will probe about illegal exercising of force against demonstrators.
RM/MG
