The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party on Sunday completed a 25-day “March for Justice” from Ankara to Istanbul and joined hundreds of thousands of supporters at a rally against a large-scale government crackdown on opponents.
Republican People’s Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu launched the 450km march after a lawmaker from his party was imprisoned last month.
The march grew into a protest of the massive clampdown on people with alleged links to terror groups that began after a coup attempt in July last year.
Photo: AFP
“Why did we march?” Kilicdaroglu said, addressing the rally. “We walked for the non-existent justice. We walked for the rights of the oppressed, for the imprisoned lawmakers, the jailed journalists... We walked for the academics who were thrown out of universities.”
Tens of thousands of people joined Kilicdaroglu throughout the march in scorching heat, chanting “rights, law, justice,” and hundreds of thousands greeted him at the Istanbul rally waving Turkish flags and flags emblazoned with the word “justice.”
“No one should think the end of this march is the end. This march was our first step,” Kilicdaroglu said.
He called on judges and prosecutors to act independently and according to their “conscience” instead of in line with the wishes of “the palace” — a reference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
He also called for an end to a state of emergency that was declared following the failed coup that has allowed the government to rule by decrees with minimal input from the legislature.
The Republican People’s Party did not allow party flags or slogans during the march because it wanted the event to be non-partisan.
Party officials said more than a million people attended the closing rally.
The government has accused Kilicdaroglu of supporting terrorist groups through his protest and Erdogan has said he is violating the law by attempting to influence the judiciary.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday also arrived in Istanbul to accept an oil industry award and to meet with Erdogan and Turkey’s foreign minister.
Ordinary citizens, sacked public employees and high-profile figures have joined Kilicdaroglu on his march.
Novelist Asli Erdogan and leading Kurdish politician Ahmet Turk, both released from jail pending trial on various terror-related charges, as well as Yonca Sik, the wife of a prominent journalist who is in prison, were just a few.
Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said 15,000 police officers were providing security at the post-march rally.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing