Justice minister vows accountability for violence in streets

ANKARA

Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç has vowed that those inciting unrest on the streets in response to the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu will be held to account.

“In a state governed by the rule of law, legal defense is not conducted on the streets. The vandals who stirred up the streets are being identified one by one. Anyone who commits a crime will be held accountable before justice. We will persist in safeguarding public order,” Tunç said in Ankara on March 25.

Underscoring that violent demonstrations are fundamentally incompatible with human rights, Tunç issued a warning against the “terrorization” of the streets.

“The Turkish judiciary has been attacked with lies for days. Our police force is being deliberately targeted through highly perilous provocations.”

The justice minister also criticized main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel over remarks he made during a CNN interview on March 24.

“To declare on a foreign media platform that the judiciary in Türkiye is not independent constitutes nothing less than a pernicious disinformation campaign,” Tunç asserted.

Furthermore, he slammed Özel for his economic boycott appeal.

“This boycott call is a direct assault on our economy. For media institutions to be singled out in a hostile manner constitutes an affront to press freedom.”

On March 24, Özel explicitly named a group of corporations, accusing them of aligning with the government while disregarding the opposition, and urged the public to boycott them.

Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesperson Ömer Çelik lambasted the opposition leader’s call for the consumer boycott.

“Özgür Özel’s blatant intimidation of media institutions and corporate entities in this manner is nothing short of political bullying,” Çelik said.

“By calling for a boycott against national enterprises, Özel has effectively undermined his own legitimacy as the leader of the CHP,” he added.

Meanwhile, a separate boycott movement has emerged from university students in Istanbul, the capital Ankara and the western city of İzmir.

Prosecutors have launched an inquiry into the Eğitim-Sen after the education union extended its support for these boycott calls and urged its members to abstain from academic activities on March 25.

The investigation was instated against the union on charges of “public incitement to commit a crime.”

Student demonstrations initially erupted at Istanbul University following the annulment of İmamoğlu’s university degree and spread to other universities.