Riot police in Turkey have fired teargas and water cannon to break up a rally called by the ousted opposition leader Özgür Özel, days after a court dismissed him as head of the main opposition CHP party.
On Sunday, police battered their way into the CHP headquarters in Ankara, firing teargas and beating party members before throwing them out, Özel said. The confrontation came after a shock court ruling last Thursday overturned a 2023 party primary that elected Özel.
The ruling ordered Özel's defeated rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, to resume his position as CHP leader. Özel called a lunchtime rally in İzmir, where the governorate ordered the closure of Cumhuriyet Square and deployed riot police with water cannon trucks to break up the flag-waving crowd.
Addressing supporters from the top of a bus, Özel urged Kılıçdaroğlu to agree to a party congress immediately, challenging him to hold a primary within a week or two of the Eid al-Adha holiday. He described the ousting as not an internal party matter but a struggle between the people and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The court case involved allegations of vote-buying in the 2023 primary, which had been thrown out in October for lack of substance before being overturned on appeal. Özel accused Erdoğan of losing all restraint, citing the jailing of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the party's presidential candidate, on charges widely seen as political.
