Özgür Özel - Ekrem İmamoğlu summit concludes! Özel calls on Erdoğan: 'Do not run from the ballot box'

As part of a 'tender corruption investigation' launched in Istanbul, detention warrants were issued for 47 people, including Beşiktaş Mayor Rıza Akpolat.

So far, 39 people have been detained as part of the operation. It was reported that Beşiktaş Mayor Akpolat was detained in Balıkesir. 

Following the detention of Rıza Akpolat, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and CHP leader Özgür Özel met at the CHP Headquarters in Ankara.

The meeting, which lasted approximately 2 hours, has concluded.

Following the critical meeting, Özel and İmamoğlu made a joint statement.

İmamoğlu stated the following:

"We are before you following an emergency assessment. Turkey woke up to a sad morning today. Certain practices that damage the judiciary and do not hesitate to introduce judicial harassment into our lives continue to emerge. Frankly, the intervention against our Mayor Rıza Akpolat in Beşiktaş, Istanbul today is absolutely not a practice consistent with the judiciary, law, justice, or human rights."

Detention warrants were also issued for the colleagues and civil servants of Ahmet Özer, who has been in custody for 80 days. The same practices continued there as well. According to information reflected in the press, the primary justification presented for the detention process is the allegation of bid-rigging. Frankly, I would like to start from here: if, as alleged, an accusation is being made against our Beşiktaş Municipality due to bid-rigging, the procedure should be different. Because our mayor should not be detained. Why are you detaining our mayor?"

According to Law No. 5018, mayors are not the authorizing officers for tenders and expenditures. The authorizing officers for tenders and expenditures are unit heads, directors, deputy mayors, and department heads. Given this, detaining the Beşiktaş Mayor abruptly at his father's house, where he was visiting out of town, is contrary to law and ethics. It is a major problem to continue the process by intimidating a person while they are with their family, with threats like 'we will break down the doors at 5 o'clock.'

This is absolutely an assassination of character. Neither the mayor nor the other detained deputy mayor and civil servants are untouchable, of course. They can be questioned and their statements taken in accordance with the law, but they are not people to be subjected to operations by raiding their homes and the municipality at dawn. If there is a problematic situation, these people can be invited to the prosecutor's office, and they would go willingly.

Have you ever seen an AK Party mayor or any official subjected to a dawn raid in the last 23 years?

Have you seen operations conducted against those responsible for managing the İBB for 25 years, whose dozens of instances of corruption and public loss we have documented and exposed? On the contrary, despite our complaints, the investigation of these files was blocked. For years, they were covered up and stalled within the Ministry of Interior.

AK Party mayors are very honorable people; they are spotless. Are all the problems and all the stains on CHP mayors, is that it? Frankly, I say this without shame: they still keep the name 'Justice' in front of their party.

The treatment they inflict on our mayors is, in fact, treatment inflicted on the will of the nation. Everything you touch, you contaminate. Unfortunately, you have even contaminated justice, the highest authority that every citizen in our country should cling to.

You have appointed a coordinating chief prosecutor to ensure these character assassinations continue, to appoint trustees to CHP members and CHP mayors in Istanbul, or to organize these types of operations.

I am addressing the Chief Prosecutor... You continue to perform your duty as a chief prosecutor who cannot meet with the İBB Mayor. Because it is clear that you were not appointed to distribute justice in Istanbul. I am following with sadness that you are performing your duty not with moves befitting the judiciary or the justice process you belong to, but in an effort to please one person.

While you show the cowardice of not even being able to meet with the representative of 16 million people, we advise you to be brave when it comes to being fair.

This individual, who occupies a very important position in the judiciary, is carrying out these practices in an organized manner and under instruction. He does this with zeal. His only goal is to assassinate the character of CHP mayors in Istanbul.

I am addressing the President: You served in the İBB. We know that during your term, many people appeared before judges on charges of bid-rigging. But you did not. Why? Because there was law and order. But in the Turkey you govern, there is no law or order left. The address of the Istanbul operations, which are being carried out with the personal knowledge of the President, is clear."

FROM ÖZEL TO ERDOĞAN: DO NOT RUN FROM THE BALLOT BOX

Özgür Özel is speaking:

"I characterize the creation of such agendas while Turkey has so many problems and troubles as extremely problematic and as something befitting a government that has lost its emotional bond with the nation, and as a confession of this fact.

This morning, the door of the official residence of our esteemed Beşiktaş Mayor Rıza Akpolat was knocked on aggressively by police, and his elderly mother, who was sleeping inside, ran to the door in a panic. She asked who it was. They said, 'Open up, police, or we will break it down.'

My aunt opened the door with fearful eyes. They said, 'We have come to take Rıza Akpolat.' His mother said, 'My child, Rıza is not here; he went to Balıkesir to be with his father. You can find him there.' 

This time, the gendarmerie went to his father's home in Balıkesir, and the scenes you are familiar with unfolded. Let me just say this: the MHP's Mayor of Osmaniye was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He spent one day in custody and was released on the grounds that he had a fixed residence. Now, the Supreme Court phase is awaited. Someone who has been sentenced to 21 years in prison and is currently not in office is free just because they declared a fixed residence, but they go to Rıza Akpolat's house, can't find him, detain him at his father's house, and transport him to Istanbul in a police car.

I would like to remind the valued voters of the Justice and Development Party of this... After the FETÖ operations, Tayyip Erdoğan had said, 'Some of our friends are tired, they should resign.' Some resigned happily, others in tears. During that process, Mr. Tayyip said for those whose resignations were delayed, 'If they don't do what is necessary, we will do it.'

A party chairman does not have the authority to tell a mayor to resign. But what is necessary can be done as follows: if they are a member of a terrorist organization or have committed corruption, you put them on trial, and if they are found guilty, they are removed from office, and someone new is elected from the municipality. But you don't tell them, 'Resign or I will do this.' They all resigned. Not a single one of them appeared before a judge or was summoned to the police station.

What was the crime of these individuals? If they were FETÖ members, why did you let them go? If they committed corruption, why did you let them go? While they tell their own mayors to 'resign and get away with it,' Tayyip Erdoğan, despite our mayor not being the tender official, did not even have himself summoned to the police station when many bureaucrats of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality were tried for corruption in tenders during his own term.

Because everyone knows that whoever signs the tenders in such a large structure is responsible. But the lawlessness that was not applied to Mr. Tayyip back then is being applied by Mr. Tayyip to CHP mayors today.

If you have the strength and the courage, do not run from the ballot box and the nation.

I know that the poll in front of you is 3 points ahead of mine. I know that the total satisfaction, which is 58 percent for us, has come out as 61 percent. You can never run away from this. If you have the courage, don't rely on prosecutors and police, come and trust the nation. Face them.

OFFER FROM ERDOĞAN TO THE CHP MAYOR: 'JOIN US!'

He is in such a state of mind that last week, a district mayor from a metropolitan city, a mayor of a district where he lost and is furious about it, called me in distress. He said, 'The President is going to have a private meeting with me. What do you think, Mr. Chairman?'

I said, 'If the President is summoning a mayor, this is a matter of state. There must be a major project for your district or something you need to know; go, and we will talk when you return.'

He went and came back; do you know what happened? He said, 'You are successful, how did you win that district? I couldn't believe my eyes. I have a congress in February, will you join us?'

'Will you join me at the congress I am holding? I will pave the way for you. I know you are a clean man, that is why I am calling you, but they might smear you, God forbid,' and other such threats... 

And then having them picked up in civilian cars and taken to the Palace. Is this appropriate? The one who does that there, makes this happen here. This is the picture of Tayyip Erdoğan's exhaustion for you.

I am telling Erdoğan this: if you are not ashamed to do it, I am not ashamed to tell it. If an investigation has begun regarding a mayor, whether for financial or constitutional crimes, and the process is finalized with a Supreme Court decision, someone is elected from the Municipal Council. But they are appointing trustees while the investigation is still in the initial stage. It is not right to remove someone from office before a final verdict; if a deputy is to take over, they must be elected from within the council. All statements made regarding the Akdeniz Municipality are as if the crime has already been proven.

'THERE IS NO PLACE FOR WEAPONS AT THE PEACE TABLE'

Mr. Devlet wrote 'peace.' He called everyone who said 'peace' a 'terrorist' in the past. Saying peace while using state of emergency powers to appoint trustees is like pulling an axe at the peace table in the morning. There is no place for weapons at the peace table. The AK Party says let's make peace, yet they are pulling an axe.

News Source: 12punto