BREAKING... Özgür Özel speaks at Şehzadebaşı Mosque: Responds to Erdoğan's remarks!

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel announced that the vigil launched at Saraçhane — in response to the judicial process initiated against Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and allegations of a possible trustee appointment — has come to an end. Noting that nearly 1.5 million people came to the square over the course of a week of protests, Özel said that at the end of the process the İBB Council went to a vote to determine who would act as deputy in place of İmamoğlu. Özel also responded to remarks Erdoğan had made about him.

Here are Özel's statements:

''Dear friends, seven days ago, last Wednesday morning, around 11:30–12:00, I arrived in Istanbul and came here. From that moment on, I have been at Saraçhane for 7 days and 7 nights. A coup attempt took place here. Right now we are seeing one result of that coup attempt having been repelled. We all know that those who cancelled Ekrem Başkan's diploma in the evening and detained him before dawn, through the cases they opened against him, intended to send their own appointees to Saraçhane instead of the person the people elected and sent there. For months, a terrorism investigation and a trustee appointment had been discussed. Throughout a week, alongside arrest and detention proceedings, pro-government media was constantly running trustee stories, making every effort to raise expectations of a trustee appointment. We had one tree of trust, one single force to lean on. That was the will of Istanbul itself. We called upon that will. That will came, and while those they had elected were in detention, they brought their will to Saraçhane square. When we made this call — even before we made it, while our preparations were underway — the Governorship imposed a 5-day ban on gatherings, marches, rallies, and protests. They even extended this to our closed-door meetings. They banned even the Saturday meeting that was to be held at the Haliç Congress Center. We called upon our people in defiance of these bans. You all watched together. The figure of 150,000 on the first night kept growing and growing and growing. On Sunday evening, we all witnessed through drone footage — from places the eye could not even reach — a crowd of over 1,200,000, approaching 1,300,000.

Despite the square and all roads leading to it being banned, despite the bridges of the historic peninsula being raised, crossings banned, traffic cut off, and pedestrian access closed, they achieved a miracle. They achieved a democratic revolution. Just as 15.5 million people went to the ballot boxes across Turkey and made Ekrem Başkan a presidential candidate, nearly 1.5 million people came to Istanbul and filled the historic peninsula. On that day, after that great jubilation here, while we were doing everything in our power to ensure no one's nose was bloodied and that young people and police would not come face to face — we kept saying this and took the highest-level precautions — there were 80 members of parliament, 25 of them with walkie-talkies and earpieces, each with 3 or 4 colleagues around them, trying to act as a buffer between police and young people along the belt or on either side. We took precautions in front of this mosque — anyone who wants can see it, it was shared from our provincial chair's own social media. We took measures with the İBB's municipal enforcement officers, the police took their own measures, but there are even images of police spraying gas into the eyes of municipal enforcement officers amid the chaos. But we swallowed all of this so that no negative images would emerge that could give rise to provocations, misunderstandings, or certain accusations. Now today we are faced with a strange situation we know from the past — a massive slander. The Gezi trial, the Gezi events happened and ended. Thousands of Fridays have passed since then. Erdoğan said he watched footage of 50 shirtless, naked people attacking our headscarf-wearing sister. Some journalists at the time also said they had been shown it. The footage never surfaced for years. Then those journalists apologized. They said there was no such footage, that they had lied that day. Now today, seven days in, a vote is being held here. Through this vote, Istanbul will be entrusted to an elected person, a municipal council member. Ekrem Başkan's deputy is being determined. Until he comes out and returns to his post, that person will serve as his deputy. The trustee risk has been eliminated. We held our final action yesterday evening. Today, iftar tables will be set up here. I will be in Beylikdüzü; our provincial chair and our organization will be here — iftar tables will be set up here for the observance of Kadir Gecesi, the most important and most meaningful night of Ramadan. This evening, for the first time in 7 days, there will be no gathering here, we have no call — and Tayyip Bey, now that the crowd is no longer coming, seizing the opportunity, unfortunately on this blessed Ramadan day, on the eve of Kadir Gecesi, he wrapped himself in a lie. I have come here with you to speak the truth, to speak what is real, friends. You have all endured it. This is Şehzade Mosque, one of Mimar Sinan's most important early works. His last work before his masterpiece period, the Muradiye Mosque in Manisa, is entrusted to us.''

One day they will prepare your grave the same way, and someone will come and either dig up or destroy your grave too. What kind of business is this? By what right are you doing this? All of it is history, all of it is magnificent as works of art — and these works, unfortunately, are being torn down by the immoral, by these shameless, dishonorable people who come and destroy them. It is not possible to accept this. It is not possible to accept this lie. It is not possible to stay silent in the face of this slander. Mr. Erdoğan, I truly do not want to say something bad on this blessed day, but is there a sin greater than this? Here it all stands, everyone is on their feet. He says I sent people to destroy them, and that one day my grave will be dug up and someone will destroy it too. My grave's location is known. It has been known for 6 generations. My grandfather's grandmother migrated from Üsküp; my other grandfather is a 6th-generation native of Manisa. For 6 generations, tax collectors in Manisa. My grandfather's father rests and lies in such a graveyard. The place where I will lie is in Manisa, in the cemetery — it is known. I am someone who, in that cemetery, had graves made for CHP and MHP provincial chairs who killed each other before 1980 — my pharmacist colleagues — without looking at their party, without distinguishing nationalist from leftist, who started a commemoration there every year and has kept it going for 30 years. You have come out and said I will die one day. Of course I will die. My lineage is known, my roots are known, the grave where I will lie is known — in Manisa. He says someone will come and destroy it. Are you sowing this hatred for the future? We came after the first election you lost, the first election I won in 50 years, and said: at a martyr's funeral in politics, you don't look sideways like that — you shake hands, you ask after people.

We called on holidays, we asked after your patients. For 15 years, if someone's mother, father, relative, or kin from the AK Party died, I either went to the funeral or went to offer condolences, and if I couldn't make it at all, I called. Even in war — in war, in war — a ceasefire is called, the dead are collected, buried according to their faith, placed in graves in a safe place, and then the war continues. Now, after 7 days, you are here safe and sound, no one has been harmed — here, your sacred trust stands upright, two fallen stones have been raised — can politics come out of this? Can enmity come out of this? You have taken the leader of the country's main opposition, or the chairman of the first party — we are still alive — killed him, put him in a grave, and said: this is how we will take this revenge on you, by desecrating his grave. Shame on you. If any CHP member said one tenth of this — "Tayyip Erdoğan's grave" and so on — it would be: "Death threat! They threatened our President with death." You say "you came with the ballot box, you'll leave with the ballot box," and they interpret the second ballot box as a coffin. Such an abnormal attempt to play the victim, to fabricate victimhood through lies — he says: this has come to me, you will die too, they will dig up your grave, desecrate it, you'll see. Call it a threat — it's not a threat. What will happen? I have already, from this point on, accepted death, accepted the grave — but that grave is entrusted to the people of Manisa, whom I love more than my own life. Just as my neighbors' graves are entrusted to me. On this beautiful day, this blessed day, instead of thinking about this — so many young people, 18-year-old children, 16-year-old children, chased and rounded up in front of the police. Yesterday they were all having their statements taken and being released, and then with one order you had them arrested.

Instead of saying, on this blessed day: since there is no longer a gathering there tonight, from now on responses will be shown at major rallies in other squares and cities — since these matters are over, let us also do our part on this blessed day so that our children can be reunited with their families — while such greatness, such virtue was expected, if we were in power, not this many AK Party children would be in detention or under arrest, and even if they were, I swear that would be my first order of business. Instead of doing that, scattering seeds of hatred. If I had been in Manisa today, if I had been in Ankara, I would truly have been upset, I would have been furious. I was right here. I have been in the same room for 7 days. I sleep in the same room, I wake up in the same room. I shave in a bathroom this small, I wash my hair, but I am not leaving here. He says I desecrated those graves. Look, friends, if there is something like that here, Tayyip Bey is right. If not, why this lie, Tayyip Bey? Mr. Erdoğan, are you going to sustain your power from here? With this lie? Will this lie allow you to sustain your power? Power is sustained through goodness, through deeds, through honesty, through courage. It cannot be done through this cowardice. In the past I used to say — the speechwriters are misleading you. Here, it's out in the open. You stepped off the script, you said these things. You left the prompter and rambled and rambled. If what you were mumbling was a death threat against me because you were so angry at me — it goes in one ear and out the other. I don't care one gram, one kilogram — however much it weighs — you look at that scale box, and you, in that scale box, that tiniest weight whose tip cannot be held by hand, that gram, that milligram — not even a milligram of conscience remains in you. In that scale box, you look at how many kilos I weigh — you'll weigh that one day too — and if you had that tiniest gram, that milligram of conscience, that milligram of decency, you would not take refuge in this lie. That is all I have to say, friends.

Details to follow...