Furious protests fill the streets of Istanbul after Turkey jails the city’s mayor

Imamoglu has denied the charges he faces as “unimaginable accusations and slanders” and called for nationwide protests on Sunday. “We will rip away this coup, this dark stain on our democracy, all together,” he said.

Footage showed him being taken to Silivri prison in a police convoy after the ruling. The mayor of Turkey’s largest city was also removed from duty, along with two other district mayors, the interior ministry said.

The government denies that investigations are politically motivated and says courts are independent.

Turkey’s vice president, Cevdet Yilmaz, and Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan sought separately to calm market jitters that sparked a sharp selloff in Turkish assets since Imamoglu was detained last week, and that analysts expect to accelerate after his jailing.

A nationwide ban on street gatherings was extended on Saturday for four more days but protests, scattered skirmishes with police and some detentions continued in major cities on Sunday, the fifth night of mostly peaceful antigovernmental demonstrations.

‘Solidarity votes’

The court said Imamoglu and at least 20 others were jailed as part of a corruption investigation, one of two opened against the two-term mayor last week.

It said he was arrested for “establishing and leading a criminal organization, accepting bribes, embezzlement, unlawfully recording personal data, and rigging public tenders in connection with a financial investigation”.

The jailing caps a months-long legal crackdown on opposition figures and the removal of other elected officials from office, in what critics called a government attempt to hurt their election prospects.