AFP, ANKARA
Hundreds of Turkish riot police firing teargas on Sunday forced their way into the Ankara headquarters of the nation’s main opposition party, days after a court had dismissed its leadership.The dramatic scuffles were the latest episode in a crackdown by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his political rivals, who have angrily resisted in the streets.Party members had blocked the building’s entrances, defying a court order issued on Thursday last week as part of an official probe against the Republican People’s Party (CHP), before officers broke in to remove the group’s leader.
Ousted Republican People’s Party chairman Ozgur Ozel gestures from atop an armored police vehicle as he leads supporters in a march toward parliament in Ankara on Sunday.
“They stormed our headquarters, used tear gas, beat us with batons, ransacked the party [building] and threw us out,” CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel said on Sunday evening.He said his rival Erdogan had “lost his senses,” claiming the assault was part of the president’s maneuvers “to win the next elections,” due in 2028.
Turkish authorities last year jailed Erdogan’s main political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who was the CHP’s candidate for the 2028 presidential election.They arrested him on corruption charges, which he has dismissed as politically motivated.The court order canceled the 2023 victory in party elections of Ozel and named its former chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu — a lackluster figure who suffered a string of electoral defeats — as interim leader.“Just as he [Erdogan] jailed the presidential candidate who could have beaten him, he has now officially closed the political party that could have beaten him,” Ozel said.Ejected from the party building, Ozel walked several kilometers in the rain toward parliament, surrounded by supporters.“The Republican People’s Party will from now be on the streets or in the squares,” he said as he was forced out of the building.He later added: “Turkey has ceased to be a modern democratic republic and has turned into an authoritarian regime.”Human Rights Watch on Saturday warned that Erdogan’s government was undermining Turkish democracy with “abusive tactics.”It called the court order “the latest deeply damaging blow to the rule of law, democracy and human rights” in Turkey.
