Turk­ish au­thor­i­ties de­tained sev­er­al jour­nal­ists from their homes, a me­dia work­ers’ union re­port­ed Mon­day, in what it said was a crack­down amid es­ca­lat­ing protests trig­gered by the im­pris­on­ment of the may­or of Is­tan­bul and top ri­val to Pres­i­dent Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan.

On Sun­day, a court for­mal­ly ar­rest­ed May­or Ekrem Imamoglu and or­dered him jailed pend­ing a tri­al on cor­rup­tion charges. His de­ten­tion on Wednes­day sparked the largest wave of street demon­stra­tions in Turkey in more than a decade, deep­en­ing con­cerns over democ­ra­cy and the rule of law.

In an ap­par­ent es­ca­la­tion of the gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to the grow­ing protests, the Disk-Basin-Is union said at least eight re­porters and pho­to­jour­nal­ists were de­tained in what it said was an “at­tack on press free­doms and the peo­ple’s right to learn the truth.”

“You can­not hide the truth by si­lenc­ing jour­nal­ists!” the union wrote on the so­cial me­dia plat­form X, call­ing for their im­me­di­ate re­lease.

A to­tal of 1,133 peo­ple have been de­tained since March 19, when the may­or was ar­rest­ed at his home, In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Ali Yer­likaya said. As many as 123 po­lice of­fi­cers were in­jured in the protests, he said adding that dan­ger­ous ma­te­ri­als such as acid, fire­bombs and knives were seized.

“Some cir­cles have been ex­ploit­ing the right to as­sem­ble and demon­strate, at­tempt­ing to dis­rupt pub­lic or­der, in­cite street un­rest, and at­tack our po­lice,” Yer­likaya said on his so­cial me­dia ac­count.

The min­is­ter said some of the de­tained were iden­ti­fied as hav­ing ties to groups list­ed as ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tions. Oth­ers had pre­vi­ous crim­i­nal records, Yer­likaya said, urg­ing the pub­lic to avoid falling for “provo­ca­tions.”

The may­or’s im­pris­on­ment is wide­ly re­gard­ed as a po­lit­i­cal move to re­move a ma­jor chal­lenger to Er­do­gan from the next pres­i­den­tial race, cur­rent­ly sched­uled for 2028. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials strong­ly re­ject the ac­cu­sa­tions and in­sist that Turkey’s courts op­er­ate in­de­pen­dent­ly.

Imamoglu was jailed on sus­pi­cion of run­ning a crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tion, ac­cept­ing bribes, ex­tor­tion, il­le­gal­ly record­ing per­son­al da­ta and bid-rig­ging — ac­cu­sa­tions he has de­nied. A re­quest for him to be im­pris­oned on ter­ror-re­lat­ed charges was re­ject­ed al­though he still faces pros­e­cu­tion.

The In­te­ri­or Min­istry lat­er an­nounced that Imamoglu had been sus­pend­ed from du­ty as a “tem­po­rary mea­sure.” The mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty had pre­vi­ous­ly ap­point­ed an act­ing may­or from its gov­ern­ing coun­cil.

The politi­cian was tak­en to Silivri prison, west of Is­tan­bul, as more than 1.7 mil­lion mem­bers of his op­po­si­tion Re­pub­li­can Peo­ple’s Par­ty, or CHP, held a pri­ma­ry elec­tion, en­dors­ing him as its pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. Mil­lions of non-mem­bers al­so cast votes in a “sol­i­dar­i­ty bal­lot,” the par­ty said.

Along­side Imamoglu, 47 oth­er peo­ple were al­so jailed pend­ing tri­al, in­clud­ing a key aide and two dis­trict may­ors from Is­tan­bul, one of whom was re­placed with a gov­ern­ment ap­pointee. A fur­ther 44 sus­pects were re­leased un­der ju­di­cial con­trol.

Imamoglu was elect­ed may­or of Turkey’s largest city in March 2019, in a ma­jor blow to Er­do­gan and the pres­i­dent’s Jus­tice and De­vel­op­ment Par­ty, which had con­trolled Is­tan­bul for a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry. Er­do­gan’s par­ty pushed to void the mu­nic­i­pal elec­tion re­sults in the city of 16 mil­lion, al­leg­ing ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

The chal­lenge re­sult­ed in a re­peat of the elec­tion a few months lat­er, which Imamoglu al­so won.

The may­or re­tained his seat fol­low­ing lo­cal elec­tions last year, dur­ing which the CHP made sig­nif­i­cant gains against Er­do­gan’s gov­ern­ing par­ty.

IS­TAN­BUL (AP) —