Istanbul, 20 May - The delegation led by European Green Party (EGP) Co-Chair Vula Tsetsi and EGP Committee Member Joanna Kaminska visits the courthouse in Silivri and meets on Wednesday with the Mayor's spouse, Dilek Kaya İmamoğlu, and acting Istanbul Mayor Nuri Aslan.
European Green Party Co-Chair Vula Tsetsi said:
‘What we are witnessing in Turkey is not only about Ekrem İmamoğlu or the group of mayors currently in prison. It is about Turkish President Erdoğan's systematic dismantling of the political opposition. The charges against Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu are politically motivated, because he is Erdoğan's biggest political challenger.’
‘The use of the judiciary against the opposition demonstrates a dangerous shift away from democratic norms and towards an autocratic system. Trials held inside prison complexes like the one we are standing in front of, with limited transparency and restricted public scrutiny, raise serious doubts about the fairness of the trial. Justice must be open, fair, and impartial - not political.’
‘We call upon the European Commission and Council to speak out and act against these attacks on democracy. Turkey remains a candidate country to the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. Respect for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law are therefore binding obligations. Imamoğlu and all the other political prisoners must be freed’, Vula Tsetsi concluded.
Joanna Kaminska, member of the European Green Party (EGP) Committee, added:
'We are shocked to learn that Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos did not meet with opposition parties or families of political prisoners during her February visit to Turkey. The European Commission must support democrats in Turkey, instead of continuing its business as usual with President Erdoğan.’
‘The EU can do better at standing up for European values. We Greens stand in solidarity with all those who have been detained unjustly, Ekrem İmamoğlu and the 400 others who are facing trial these weeks, as well as the countless others imprisoned for their peaceful political beliefs. This trial is being closely watched across Europe. What happens in this courtroom goes beyond Turkey. It concerns the democratic standards on our shared continent’, she said.
Background
Ekrem İmamoğlu is the democratically elected Mayor of Istanbul, a city of over 16 million people. He won the 2019 election and was comfortably re-elected in 2024, one year before his arrest. His arrest in March 2025 marked a new phase of political repression in Turkey. Protests erupted across the country, and close to 15 million people took part in an open primary to designate Ekrem İmamoğlu as the presidential candidate of the CHP, Turkey's main opposition party, which won the most votes in the March 2024 elections.
The European Parliament adopted, on 7 May 2025, a strong and critical resolution on the deterioration of democracy, attacks on political pluralism, and repression of opposition voices in the country.
