{"id":38800,"date":"2026-03-12T16:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/38800\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T16:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T16:56:08","slug":"turkish-prosecutors-investigate-x-account-sharing-imamoglus-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/38800\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish prosecutors investigate X account sharing \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s statements"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into a social media account that shares statements from jailed \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, the main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party\u2019s (CHP) presidential candidate, Turkish Minute<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

The \u0130stanbul Chief Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office announced on Wednesday that it had opened an investigation into the X account \u201c@CAOIletisim,\u201d which belongs to the \u201cPresidential Candidate Office\u201d and publishes messages and statements attributed to \u0130mamo\u011flu.<\/p>\n

Since his arrest in March 2025 on corruption charges widely seen by critics as politically motivated, \u0130mamo\u011flu has been communicating with the public through official campaign accounts run by his lawyers after his personal X account was blocked in Turkey in April 2025 on the grounds of \u201cnational security\u201d and \u201cpublic order.\u201d His international X account was also\u00a0restricted<\/a>\u00a0in May.<\/p>\n

The campaign account, which has faced repeated blocking orders on similar grounds, is now under criminal investigation and was blocked again on Thursday. However, the X platform has not yet made the account, which has 209,000 followers, inaccessible from Turkey.<\/p>\n

According to the prosecutor\u2019s office, the investigation concerns allegations of \u201cinsulting the president\u201d and \u201cpublicly disseminating misleading information,\u201d an offense defined under Article 217 of the Turkish Penal Code.<\/p>\n

The investigation comes as the trial of the jailed mayor\u00a0began<\/a>\u00a0in \u0130stanbul this week.<\/p>\n

The nearly 4,000-page\u00a0indictment<\/a>\u00a0accuses \u0130mamo\u011flu of running what prosecutors call a \u201ccriminal organization\u201d within the municipality and committing 142 offenses including bribery, fraud, bid rigging and money laundering. \u0130mamo\u011flu has\u00a0denied<\/a>\u00a0the accusations, calling the indictment \u201ca pile of lies built through threats and coercion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The indictment names \u0130mamo\u011flu and 401 other defendants, with prosecutors seeking a sentence of up to 2,430 years in prison for him. The charges have been widely criticized as politically motivated.<\/p>\n

His arrest, generally seen as targeting the biggest political rival to longtime President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan in the 2028 presidential election, sparked Turkey\u2019s worst protests in the last decade.<\/p>\n

The latest investigation attracted criticism from the CHP.<\/p>\n

CHP Deputy Chair Burhanettin Bulut said the probe was intended to intimidate the opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u0130stanbul Chief Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office has launched an investigation into the Presidential Candidate Office account on the pretext of \u2018insulting the president\u2019 and \u2018publicly disseminating misleading information,\u2019\u201d Bulut said in a statement shared on social media.<\/p>\n

He accused the government of deliberately conflating criticism with insult and journalism with disinformation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim of this mentality, which deliberately mixes criticism with insult and news with disinformation, is to intimidate the opposition and create a climate of fear in society,\u201d Bulut said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a democratic country, no one who exercises public power is exempt from criticism. The law should not be a tool to silence dissenting voices but a guarantee of justice and freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u0130mamo\u011flu won \u0130stanbul\u2019s mayoral race in 2019 and defeated Erdo\u011fan\u2019s Justice and Development Party (AKP) again after the results of the first election were cancelled on the grounds of irregularities.<\/p>\n

He was named his party\u2019s presidential candidate in March for the next general election scheduled for 2028. But his political future has been clouded by court cases and legal rulings that could bar him from politics and that his party and supporters say are designed to sideline him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into a social media account that shares statements from jailed \u0130stanbul Mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[5881,2031,22121,312,22122,1181,427,429,18505,131,132,155],"class_list":{"0":"post-38800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stockholm","8":"tag-blocked-accounts-on-x","9":"tag-crackdown-on-opposition","10":"tag-digital-censorship","11":"tag-human-rights","12":"tag-insulting-president","13":"tag-istanbul-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu","14":"tag-justice","15":"tag-oppression","16":"tag-publicly-disseminating-misleading-information","17":"tag-stockholm","18":"tag-sweden","19":"tag-turkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116217261870950346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}