Özel visits Ekrem İmamoğlu! 'They will not get away with this'

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel visited detained Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu at Marmara Prison in Silivri.

In his statement following the meeting, Özel said the following:

"Last night, 12 of our friends were sent from Silivri to 6 different cities, including Bolu, İzmir, Kocaeli, Edirne, and Tekirdağ. Murat Çalık, the Mayor of Beylikdüzü, was taken from here and sent to İzmir. While his family, wife, and children were 20 minutes away, they are now 6 hours away. How will family visits work? Mehmet Murat Çalık is just one example. To date, nearly 30 of our friends have been sent to Bandırma, Eskişehir, and places furthest from their families. Even the FETÖ members did not stoop to such cruelty here; they did not do this. What do you want from Murat Çalık's mother and wife?

The morality of CHP members does not allow for slander; the evil minds facing us, who do not know us, are persecuting children, spouses, mothers, and fathers. We say let us not accumulate resentment or anger from today onwards, but we are facing evil people who will not make this possible. We pledge that after us, no one's spouse, friend, or family will be persecuted just because they are our political rivals! We offer no guarantees to those who make these decisions, the evil minds who make them take these actions, or those who implement them. We only guarantee a fair trial... They will not get away with this much evil. Nothing but death could ever diminish my energy or my faith in ensuring they do not get away with these actions; let them know this.

The AK Party is trying to seize Gaziosmanpaşa; the attack on my party continues. For the first time, an active Party Assembly member has been arrested. For the first time, a former term deputy, Aykut Erdoğdu, has been arrested. They carried out a new wave with many slanders and insults without concrete evidence. Mayor Ekrem's security chief, Mustafa Bey, is inside; he says, 'I have only shed tears once in my life.' When I said to Mayor Ekrem as he was leaving, 'Your family is entrusted to me'... They took the person who protects his family, who is by his side, and who does this work, and brought him here...

İZMİR STRIKE

(The İzmir strike) It turned out for the best. Both the DİSK family and the CHP family overcame this process despite the difficulties. We heard bad words, sarcastic remarks, etc... There may be those who were hurt by words used from our side; we have resolved the difficult process. Wherever there was a flaw or deficiency, we have forgotten it. If any laboring brother or sister was upset, I take full responsibility. What matters is that an agreement has been reached. The worst union is better than having no union. Everyone should be unionized. I also thank our İzmir Metropolitan Mayor and our other friends.

(Footage of the mayors' transfer) There is a problem with Murat Çalık's health. It is not right for him to be transferred like this, and it is not right to keep him away from his family. This is cruelty. What happened yesterday is no different from what was experienced in the Yassıada courts; a film of shame has been shot... The screenwriter, the author, and the illustrator of this film is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; they are doing it to curry favor with him, they are doing it to intimidate us. Even if the Minister of Justice were on a pilgrimage and called to say he was sorry or that he had repented, it would have no value. I know the Minister of Justice would not stoop this low. What value would it have if the Minister of Interior apologized? I know who did it and who ordered it. If so many former AK Party ministers and politicians are criticizing this situation, the ones they are criticizing are the managers and the head of today's party, who set out 23-25 years ago and have drifted to this point. What they are doing saddens me, it pains me, I feel as if it were done to me. I am ashamed of those images, but the perpetrators are not ashamed. The nation will punish them for this.

The party congress indictment is completely empty. Until today, they kept saying 'money, money, money.' That shameless structure, that mob—they cannot be called journalists! Money was given, money was taken, currency exchange offices were opened... The MASAK report says that no money movement could be found... They put a summary of the MASAK report, and the MASAK report says they are clean. On the other hand, the indictment claims that jobs and mayoralties were offered in exchange for voting for Özel, etc... We have the polls on how they were nominated; I can send them any poll they want.

In this age, there are countries without these things in autocratic regimes. There are attempts to do things that were not even done during coup periods. What is the name of the head of the criminal organization who says, 'I will be a confessor'? Aziz İhsan Aktaş... He becomes a confessor, and they release the head of the criminal organization. Imagine for a moment that there is a criminal organization and that this person is included in the organization. Can the leader say, 'We committed these crimes,' get away with it, and the others get convicted? The man founded the organization; is this what being a confessor is? This is slander, this is a setup. They have set up a 2025-model conspiracy.

Someone you served as a deputy with, whom you addressed as 'Brother Hasan,' someone who has served the public for 50 years, brilliant bureaucrats, being led by their arms... Today, the Republic of Turkey does not treat terrorist organizations this way, it does not treat gangs this way. The images of the coup eras should not be relived like this. There are all kinds of terrorist organizations here; do you distribute the members of one of them to 7 different cities in one night, yet you distributed my friends?

News Source: 12punto