Ekrem Imamoglu, the jailed mayor of Istanbul and presumptive presidential challenger to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, levelled fresh allegations of physical and psychological mistreatment against government authorities during another tense court hearing held on June 9 at Silivri prison complex in Istanbul.

Addressing the court, Imamoglu claimed that gendarmerie officers pushed him over on some stairs.

“Who pushed me?”

During the lunch break of the day-long hearing, an altercation reportedly occurred between Imamoglu and gendarmerie personnel. Media reports suggested that, while Imamoglu was heading downstairs, he called out to the court audience: “Full steam ahead!”

Reported accounts said that at this moment, Imamoglu stumbled after an intervention by the gendarmerie and looked as though he was about to fall. Reacting to what he described as a push from behind on the stairs as he was being escorted out of the courtroom, Imamoglu said: “Was it you who just pushed me? Insolent. Commander, I was on the point of falling down the stairs. Who just pushed me? You lied when you said ‘the vehicle is broken down’ [A reference to another incident, explained below]. Now you are doing the exact same thing again. Do not do it again. I will file a criminal complaint against you. You cannot prevent me from speaking.”

In response, the head of the gendarmerie personnel replied: “This is not the place to speak.”

Imamoglu responded: “This is precisely the place to speak. If you did not see what happened, we are reporting it to you, commander. I am reporting it to you. They pushed me from behind in a reckless manner. I am relaying this to you.”

Complaint from wife

Imamoglu’s wife, Dilek Kaya Imamoglu, also reacted to the apparent push, stating: “This behaviour directed at my dear husband, Ekrem Imamoglu, is grave disrespect aimed not just at an individual, but at the rule of law, human dignity and the sense of justice.”

“The Republic of Turkey is a state governed by the rule of law and the law must be enforced,” she added in a written statement.

“It is unacceptable to intervene in a manner that could cause a person to fall and then to act as if it never happened. We will not allow the normalisation of any practice where the law is suspended and human dignity is devalued. We will never give up on the struggle for a Turkey where justice operates equally for everyone and where no one’s dignity is trampled upon,” Dilek Kaya Imamoglu also said.

“Psychological torture”

The courtroom outburst is the latest in a series of highly specific grievances raised by Imamoglu and his legal team regarding their treatment in Turkey's penal system.

On June 5, the mayor lodged a formal complaint regarding a disrupted 120-kilometre (75-mile) transit that was to take him from high-security Silivri prison to Kartal courthouse on the Anatolian side of Istanbul.

The trip was arranged to transport Imamoglu to a hearing in a separate trial in which he is accused of insulting the former mayor of Tuzla district in Istanbul during a ceremony held in 2023. Imamoglu was twice acquitted of the charge, but a higher regional court returned the file to the first instance court for a retrial.

Imamoglu claimed that the transit was turned back on the road because of what authorities claimed was a vehicle breakdown. It meant taking a gruelling circuitous journey and frustrating logistics that the mayor explicitly felt was a form of “psychological torture”.

Vehicle turned around

After he was returned to Silivri prison, Imamoglu attended the hearing via the video call system known as the SEGBIS in Turkey. He explained to the hearing what had happened and refused to deliver his defence. The hearing was then ended, with a next hearing date of September 11 assigned.

“I was taken from my ward at 07:20 AM and escorted out of the prison at 07:30 AM,” he said.

The vehicle came to a halt after around 60 kilometres. The hood was opened and an inspection took place before the journey resumed. Imamoglu later noticed that the vehicle was turning back.

“I asked what was happening. I wasn’t even given any information. Later, I was told that the vehicle had broken down and that was why we were turning back. I said, ‘Wait a minute, what are you doing? If it has broken down, why are we turning back? How can returning in a faulty vehicle be the solution?’” he told the court.

“I said I needed to go to the toilet, but the instruction was, ‘Let him wait,’” he also claimed.

Systematic “torture” allegations

The allegations made do not only concern the mayor. In June 2025, as claims over the alleged treatment of alleged participants in an “Imamoglu Crime Syndicate” proliferated, Imamoglu (@CBAdayOfisi) wrote in a tweet that jailed female Istanbul municipality officials, detained due to alleged associations with him, were subject to systematic torture.

According to Imamoglu, the aim was to turn all suspects into “confessors” by exerting pressure and resorting to blackmail, threats and torture.

Some suspects have complained that they have been subject to hunger, handcuffing for long hours and small, crowded and dirty cells with no air and filled with cigarette smoke.

They have also described insults thrown at them and transfers made to distant prisons, with access to lawyer and family member visits consequently cut or restricted. It is alleged that suspects were transferred in one square-metre cages while in handcuffs.

Other complaints have included:

• Prisoners made to sleep on the floor,
• Subjecting of a multiple sclerosis patient to a police van interior as hot as 40 degrees Celcius during a transfer to a a courthouse,
• Patients with mortality risks kept in prison conditions.
• People kept in cells with burst sewers.
• Cancer patients subjected to conditions that mean they are regularly hospitalised.

Turkey is not unfamiliar with allegations of torture. Typically, files on such claims are either closed or never progressed in the first place.