Supporters of Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and main rival of President Erdogan, participate in a rally to protest his arrest in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 16, 2025. (Credit: Umit Bektas / Reuters)
The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19 removed Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s toughest opponent. However, a month later, the Turkish president is still struggling to quell the opposition, largely driven by the youth. The massive protests in the first week, where tens of thousands gathered each evening in front of Istanbul’s City Hall and people of all ages took to the streets in numerous cities, have since subsided.
The celebrations marking the end of Ramadan brought calm, but protests — unprecedented since the large Gezi movement that started in Istanbul’s Taksim Square in 2013 — have resumed in the last ten days at universities in Istanbul and Ankara. In recent days, the discontent has spread to dozens of high schools across the country, where a decision by the AKP (Islamo-conservative) government to replace certain teachers, seen as an attempt to reassert control over these institutions, has ignited further unrest.
“The discontent [among the youth] was already latent, but it crystallized into a more explicit rejection of the AKP since mid-March,” explains Demet Lüküslü, a sociology professor at Istanbul’s Yeditepe University, who believes that some young people “reject the conservatism and Islamization of society” and demand more “rights and freedoms.”
‘Breaking the silence’
The arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, the candidate for the main opposition party (CHP, social-democratic) in the 2028 presidential election, on the very day of his imprisonment for “corruption,” sparked a broader anger in a country ruled by President Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) since 2002.
“It’s the accumulation of anger from millions of young people who have only known the AKP and are not being heard,” says Eda, 17, a senior high school student in Istanbul where protests took place this week. “We want to break the silence on which the government has built its hegemony,” adds the student, who wishes to remain anonymous, noting that several dozen of the 300 young people detained since the beginning of the protests are still incarcerated.
On Friday, the trial of 189 people accused of participating in banned protests, many of them students, began in Istanbul. Their supporters—classmates, professors, opposition lawmakers—gathered outside the court. “We are not afraid,” Sümeyye Belentepe, a student facing trial in September, told AFP. “Now, we are stronger, more united” in the struggle, added Ahmetcan Kaptan, another student beside her.
Economic repercussions
The arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, described as a “coup” by the opposition, also had economic repercussions. In addition to calls for boycotts of companies close to the government, the Istanbul Stock Exchange dropped nearly 14% over the past month, and the Turkish lira lost about 4% against the dollar and nearly 8% against the euro, reaching a historically low level despite $50 billion being injected by Turkey’s central bank to support the currency. On Thursday, the central bank was forced to raise its key interest rate for the first time since March 2024, from 42.5% to 46%.
This week, Devlet Bahçeli, President Erdogan’s main ally, urged the judiciary to quickly judge the mayor of Istanbul, fearing, according to some observers, that the turmoil surrounding the fate of opposition leader Imamoglu could disrupt Turkey’s efforts to achieve disarmament and the dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). CHP leader Özgür Özel renewed his call for early elections and called for a large rally on Saturday in Yozgat (central Turkey), the capital of a rural province. In early April, farmers in Yozgat had been fined for protesting Imamoglu’s arrest aboard their tractors.
The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19 removed Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s toughest opponent. However, a month later, the Turkish president is still struggling to quell the opposition, largely driven by the youth. The massive protests in the first week, where tens of thousands gathered each evening in front of Istanbul’s City Hall and people of all ages took to the streets in numerous cities, have since subsided.The celebrations marking the end of Ramadan brought calm, but protests — unprecedented since the large Gezi movement that started in Istanbul’s Taksim Square in 2013 — have resumed in the last ten days at universities in Istanbul and Ankara. In recent days, the discontent has spread to dozens of high schools across the country, where a decision by the AKP (Islamo-conservative) government to...