Turkish riot police fired tear gas and used water cannons to disperse a rally called by ousted opposition leader Ozgur Özel in the coastal city of Izmir on Tuesday.
Ozel called the Izmir rally at noon (0900 GMT) as Turkey began preparations for a four-day shutdown to mark the religious holiday Eid al-Adha, also known as the Greater Eid.
According to Turkish media reports, before the rally began, the governorate ordered the closure of the city’s central Cumhuriyet Square and deployed large numbers of riot police with water cannon trucks to break up the flag-waving crowd.
“President Ozgur, Free Türkiye!” they shouted in scenes broadcast live on TV.
The demonstration was moved to a nearby location, where it continued peacefully. Özel addressed his supporters from a bus and spoke to thousands of participants in Izmir, a city considered a stronghold of the secular opposition.
Political tension is increasing in Türkiye
The protests in Izmir came just days after police stormed the headquarters of Türkiye’s main opposition CHP party to take control of the building.
Police stormed the compound using tear gas and journalists in Ankara were removed from the building.
It marked a violent end to several hours of standoff between members of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and its new court-appointed leadership.
Tensions had been rising since last week when an appeals court annulled the election of Ozgur Özel as party president in 2023, and suspended him and members of the party’s executive board.
The decision said he should be replaced by his predecessor Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who led the party for 13 years but never won a national election.
Özel, who is 51, is one of the few remaining in the party who has avoided charges that could have landed him in custody.
The court’s decision was the latest in a series of moves against the CHP, which scored a major political victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP party in 2024 local elections.
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko