The New York Times Erdogan Calls It an Anticorruption Drive. His Rivals Call It a Political Crackdown. Turkey has arrested at least 390 people associated with the political opposition since March.

 The New York Times 

Erdogan Calls It an Anticorruption Drive. His Rivals Call It a Political Crackdown.

Turkey has arrested at least 390 people associated with the political opposition since March.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey  gestures with his hands as he makes a speech.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in Nicosia, Cyprus, last month. In a recent speech, he said that government investigators were exposing “the biggest gang of robbers in the history of the Republic.”Credit...Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters

By Ben Hubbard and Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

Aug. 16, 2025

Updated 6:43 a.m. ET

In the five months since Turkey detained President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top political rival, the authorities have arrested hundreds of others associated with the opposition in what Mr. Erdogan’s critics call an attempt to undermine his competitors.

More than 100 of them are still detained pending investigations or trials on charges that center on corruption in municipal affairs, according to a tally by Turkey's largest opposition party.

On Friday morning, another 42 people, including a district mayor of Istanbul, were arrested on corruption charges, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

The arrests come at a time of uncertainty about the political future of Turkey and Mr. Erdogan, who has dominated the country’s politics for more than two decades. He cannot legally run again when his current, third presidential term ends in 2028 but could seek another mandate if Parliament were to call early elections, an outcome many analysts expect him to pursue.

The arrests began last year but have accelerated since March, when the police arrested Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, citing allegations of corruption, which he denies.

In the months since, the government has arrested at least 390 people in connection with investigations of alleged corruption in the Istanbul municipal government and other opposition-run cities, according to a New York Times tally based on Turkish media reports. The opposition says those arrested include current and former mayors and other municipal officials as well as representatives of companies that have worked with opposition-run city governments.

Although these arrests have not led to any convictions, Mr. Erdogan said in a speech last month that government investigators were exposing “the biggest gang of robbers in the history of the Republic.”

Opposition leaders have denied the charges and accuse Mr. Erdogan’s government of weaponizing the judiciary to weaken its opponents and silence critics, some of whom have faced legal action for opposing the arrests.

“My confidence in justice, in the law, in how it is executed and investigated is gone,” said Cem Yigit Uzumoglu, an actor who played Mehmed the Conqueror in the Netflix docudrama “Rise of Empires: Ottoman.”

In an interview, he described how the police had arrested him at his home in the middle of the night in April after he posted support on social media for a boycott of government-linked companies. Prosecutors are now seeking prison sentences up to about seven years on charges that include instigating hatred in society, an accusation he called “ridiculous.”

Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party fared poorly in nationwide municipal elections last year, largely because of anger over high inflation.

Yet his geopolitical position appears strong. The civil war in neighboring Syria ended with a Turkish-friendly administration in Damascus. European countries count on his help to curb migration. And he has a warm relationship with President Trump, whose secretary of state, Marco Rubio, recently ordered American diplomats to limit their comments about how other countries practice democracy.

Few Western governments have spoken publicly about the arrests.

Mr. Imamoglu, a star in the opposition Republican People’s Party, had beat candidates backed by Mr. Erdogan for mayor of Istanbul three times, and some polls suggested he could beat Mr. Erdogan in a presidential race.

The mayor’s arrest came days before he officially began his presidential campaign and one day after his university suddenly annulled his undergraduate diploma, citing a decades-old irregularity. That alone could keep him from becoming the president, who is required by law to have completed higher education.

The timing of those events, which followed other cases that could temporarily bar Mr. Imamoglu from politics, led his supporters to accuse the government of seeking to knock him out of the running.

The Turkish government insists that its prosecutors and courts are independent and has called on citizens to trust the authorities and not prejudge investigations.

Interrogation notes and other information shared with Turkish news outlets indicate that investigators are pursuing allegations that include bribery, fraud, improper distribution of municipal contracts and solicitation of favors in exchange for construction permits. The New York Times has not been able to independently verify these details.

In his address in July, Mr. Erdogan said that the investigations were free of politics and uncovering great criminality.

As this year’s arrests have progressed, the government has also taken legal action against critics, using laws that rights groups say restrict freedom of speech.

Last month, a student, Doruk Dorucu, tore up his diploma during a university graduation ceremony to protest the annulment of Mr. Imamoglu’s diploma and what he called undue government interference in Turkish universities.

In an interview, Mr. Dorucu said that the police arrested him at his home later that night. He said that he has been barred from traveling abroad while being investigated for inciting hatred among the public.

“In terms of oppression, we are in such a bad period,” he said. “Everyone is afraid that they can be taken from their homes at dawn over one tweet or one joke they made in daily chitchat with friends.”

Ben Hubbard is the Istanbul bureau chief, covering Turkey and the surrounding region.

Şafak Timur covers Turkey and is based in Istanbul.

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