ISTANBUL (Medyascope) – An ongoing crackdown on opposition-controlled municipalities in Turkey continued early Tuesday (April 7) with the arrests of 20 individuals affiliated with Istanbul’s Üsküdar district administration.
Since local elections in March 2024, Üsküdar has been controlled by Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). District mayor Sinem Dedetaş was not among the arrested Tuesday.
Since the beginning of 2025, however, growing judicial pressure has led to the arrests of scores of elected CHP officials, both in Istanbul and across Turkey. Critics have decried these operations as politically motivated.
The 20 individuals arrested Tuesday morning have been accused of ‘bribery and irregularities in building permit and occupancy permit processes’. Among the arrested is Filiz Deveci, the deputy district mayor of Üsküdar. In addition to the five municipal officials arrested, 15 contractors with links to the municipality are also among the arrests.
Following the operation, Üsküdar district mayor Sinem Dedetaş spoke to journalist İsmail Saymaz, denying irregularities or corruption in the district administration:
“When we took office, zoning and permit matters were managed by the top management of the municipality. We decided to change this and completely prohibited any requests for donations or contributions related to any zoning or building permit processes. Therefore, requests, donations, and contributions are out of the question. All of these are prohibited in our municipality.”
Mayor Dedetaş speaks to Medyascope
Dedetaş also spoke to Medyascope following the operation, saying:
“Since the arrest of [Istanbul] Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, all of us in the CHP at the municipal level have felt we’re a part of these operations. But for certain technical reasons, I did not expect this operation at our municipality this morning.”
In her comments to Medyascope, Dedetaş also denied rumors that she was considering a switch to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP): “We don’t know who is spreading these rumors. Maybe it’s the other side?”
Üsküdar operation follows a series of recent arrests
On March 31st, the mayor of Turkey’s 4th-largest city of Bursa was arrested on similar charges of corruption and bribery. The week prior, the mayor of the western-Anatolian city of Uşak was also detained, along with 10 other municipal officials.
These developments have occured in parallel to an ongoing court case in which prosecutors are seeking a 2400-year prison sentence for imprisoned Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
The February promotion of then-Istanbul Chief Prosecutor Akın Gürlek to Justice Minister was criticized by the Turkish opposition as evidence of the erosion of judicial independence in Turkey. Prior to his promotion to lead the Justice Ministry, Gürlek was responsible for issuing indictments and investigations against numerous opposition officials, including İmamoğlu.
20 arrests in Istanbul’s opposition-held Üsküdar district |
Translated by Leo Kendrick for Medyascope
