A Turkish court on June 19 ordered the arrest of Mehmet Pehlivan, the lawyer of jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, in response to a request lodged by the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office, according to local media reports.

Imamoglu, the chief political rival to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been in jail since March 19 but the world media has more or less lost interest and Imamoglu is not expecting a call from the likes of Donald Trump any time soon (or from the leader of any major power, come to think of it). He is incarcerated in Silivri Prison. Pehlivan, meanwhile, is behind bars in Kartepe prison in Corlu, a town that neighbours Silivri.

Lawyer of lawyer still free

In March, Pehlivan (@mehmettpehlivan) was briefly detained and released. In April, Pehlivan’s lawyer Yigit Gokcehan Kocoglu (@ygokcehank) was also briefly detained and released.

Currently, Kocoglu is not under arrest.

Police block and disperse lawyers’ protest march

On June 23, the union of bar associations in Turkey, of which Pehlivan is a member, attempted to march in protest from the Caglayan courthouse in Istanbul to the city’s bar association (@istbarosu), located near Taxim. 

Pepper gas-wielding police intervened to disperse them before they could take a few steps. This led to a sit-in protest in the courthouse.

Lawyers of people jailed under the scope of the Imamoglu operation, seen by critics as entirely political in nature with the objective of removing the threat of a politician who would defeat Erdogan at the ballot box, have launched an X account (@ibbsavunma).

Detention waves, obtaining confessions

According to calculations by BBC Turkce, 139 people have so far been detained during five waves of detentions conducted by the Imamoglu investigators since March 19.

When Pehlivan is added, the total makes 140. However that total misses the people detained in targeted moves outside of the detention waves, as well as people who detained on separate charges supposedly not linked to the Imamoglu operation. So, it is not possible to keep exact statistics on how many people have been detained.

Also elusive is the number of people who have turned state witness. It appears the figure must currently stand at more than 30.

On June 18, Erdogan (@RTErdogan), invited leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Ozgur Ozel, to make a confession. Ozel is an MP with parliamentary immunity. He is not subject to a prosecution, but he is a suspect under investigation.

Sketching the “octopus”

According to government media, there are some cases in which a confessor states that he bribed another confessor, while that other confessor states that he received the bribe in question. And evidence such as this is supposed to show that Imamoglu is the head of an “octopus-like” crime syndicate with “many tentacles”, as described by Erdogan.

For someone who has never heard of something called the law, such arguments may sound logical. However, jailing lawyers is definitely not supportive.

Also to note, trolls are still disclosing who will be detained and arrested and jailed before the moves are made. This is a habit that first emerged during Turkey’s Ergenekon trials (2007-2013). The same trolls used then by the Gulenists still serve today, and they are still able to annoy Turks.

Changed statement

Pehlivan was arrested after a person turned witness changed his statement after enduring a few months in jail.

Even the high courts in Turkey do not accept a confession as enough proof in itself for the jailing of a person. However, their rulings of such matters arrive only after a few years. If the subjects are still in jail, lower courts or the government can opt to not comply with the higher court decision and keep the subject in a cell.

Systematic torture

After the cries of jailed suspects of the alleged Imamoglu Crime Syndicate reached heaven, Imamoglu (@CBAdayOfisi) wrote on June 11 in a tweet that prisoners jailed due to their alleged associations with him have been subject to systematic torture.

According to Imamoglu, the aim was to turn all suspects into confessors with pressure, blackmail, threats and torture.

Suspects complain that they have been subject to hunger, handcuffing for long hours, and small, crowded, dirty cells, with no air and cigarette smoke.

They also describe insults and transfers made to prisons far away, with access to lawyers and family member visits consequently cut or restricted. The fact that the transfer involves placing the person in custody into a one square-metre cage, in which they must wear handcuffs, is also something of a problem).

Other complaints include:

• Prisoners made to sleep on the floor,
• Subjecting of an MS patient to a police van interior as hot as 40 degrees Celcius during a transfer to a a courthouse,
• Keeping patients with mortality risks in prison conditions.
• Keeping people in cells with burst sewers.
• Subjecting cancer patients to conditions that mean they are regularly hospitalised.

In 2010, a young man committed suicide after he was allegedly tortured by the police. The court case continues, but it only continues because the man’s family has been carefully following the trial process. Typically in Turkey, such cases are either closed or never launched.

Another municipality seized

Currently, 12 main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) mayors are in jail. 

On June 11, Gaziosmanpasa district parliament elected an AKP ruling party member as the new mayor.

The number of seized CHP municipalities thus rose to four (Esenyurt, Ovacik, Sisli and Gaziosmanpasa).

In four municipalities, the district parliament has elected a CHP member as the new mayor to replace the jailed mayor (Istanbul, Besiktas, Avcilar and Buyukcekmece). The remaining four (Beykoz, Beylikduzu, Ceyhan and Seyhan) remain in limbo.