İmamoğlu writes from prison: 'We will overcome this process together'

CHP presidential candidate and Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Ekrem İmamoğlu addressed the public in a letter written from Silivri Prison, where he is being held. In his letter, İmamoğlu shared his assessments regarding the corruption investigation conducted against him, the process of his arrest, and the political climate in Turkey.

Here is İmamoğlu's article:

"We have had difficult times before. This nation has seen politicians it elected with their honest votes executed, thrown into prison, and stripped of their powers by force. Our previous difficult times had one important thing in common: they were all periods of military coups.

Today, however, this nation is witnessing a first. For the first time, an elected President is deeming it appropriate to treat the children of the nation, who were elected with honest votes and who recognize no power other than the nation as the source of their political legitimacy, the way coup plotters did. For the first time, one elected official is attacking others with the state's police, the state's judiciary, the state's media, and all its institutions.

One elected official is acting as a prosecutor against others, using expressions like 'the tail of the beast' or 'the biggest radish.' He declares his rivals guilty by being aware of a file that only the relevant prosecutor should normally see and that no one else should know about, dictating the decisions he wants the judiciary to make, and even issuing instructions.

"This is a danger that can no longer be hidden"

These practices, which we are all witnessing, are an overt evil committed against Turkey and our nation. Because it is evident from all economic and financial data that these anti-democratic choices serve poverty, not prosperity. A politician who needs the favor of the nation never approves of actions and transactions against the nation.

It means that the current President and the order consisting of a handful of people around him no longer need the favor of the nation. This is a danger that can no longer be hidden. The second danger is the efforts aimed at eroding the love, care, and respect the nation feels for its state. We must stand against this situation as a nation.

Previous coups had one more common feature. They all came with the intention of leaving. They knew they were temporary. They knew the nation would not surrender its will to them, and they all left.

Politics always returned, and the nation never allowed the desires of coup plotters to prevail. Whoever the coup plotters tried to impose on the nation after themselves, it did not work. The nation claimed its right to determine its own destiny to the end and did not follow the path drawn by the coup plotters.

Our political history has seen many coups and tutelary structures.

This time, we are facing a tutelary focus that is trying to legitimize the coup they committed through the judiciary. This time, we are facing a structure that is attacking recklessly, with no intention of leaving.

This time, we are facing more than just a mind or an ill intent trying to stop its rivals at the ballot box and win another election.

This time, we are facing a will to establish a regime that wants to end politics and political competition forever.

This time, we are facing an operational, harassing mentality that has risked a civilian coup to achieve its goal, neutralized the supreme Turkish judiciary, and made it disreputable and unreliable.

This mentality, which tries to govern the country with the judiciary it tries to use as a tool for its purpose, does not hesitate to make our nation pay heavy economic, social, and psychological costs.

If the ambitions of a single person and the order he is trying to establish succeed in this painful period, it must be known that the goal of crowning the Republic, which has been fought for for 105 years, with democracy will disappear, and our country will tumble into an abyss.

If this oligarchic structure succeeds, our country will lose its pluralistic democracy based on democratic competition. The nation's freedom of choice will be taken away, the nation will lose, and our future will be plunged into darkness.

"The nation is rising up to teach a lesson to those who abuse the authority they received from the nation and seek permission from 'foreign powers' to have me arrested, and to take back the authority they gave."

Today, the nation is rising up to protect its will with these concerns and anxieties about the future. The nation is not rising up just for Ekrem İmamoğlu. Our nation is rising up to protect the Republic and democracy, which are the guarantors of the character of freedom and independence that history has entrusted to it. The nation is rising up for its freedom, for democracy, for justice, for its prosperity. It is rising up to teach the lesson deserved to those who steal its freedom, who steal the powers of the representatives it elected with its will, and who steal the rights earned with sweat; its diplomas, title deeds, money, property, and assets. It is rising up to teach a lesson to those who abuse the authority they received from the nation and seek permission from 'foreign powers' to have me arrested, and to take back the authority they gave.

''The nation is rising up with the labor pains of establishing a new, peaceful, happy, fair, and democratic life''

The nation is rising up to take back those who attempt to enslave it to dominant nations, just as they brought them. The nation is rising up to reject slavery and to run toward the place it deserves in the 21st century with its youth, with confident steps. The nation is rising up with the labor pains of establishing a new, peaceful, happy, fair, and democratic life.

The government did not want to see a candidate against it until the election. It was preparing to do what it is doing today on the eve of the election. It was calculating to cripple the opposition's candidate determination process just before the elections and to drag the opposition into inertia so that it would be occupied with its internal tensions.

Their goal was to convince our citizens just before the election that they were confused and left without options, and that they were dependent on them.

When the CHP decided to determine a candidate and announced that it would do so through a primary election with the widest possible participation, their settings were disrupted, and their games were ruined.

The CHP took action to determine a candidate as soon as possible due to the poverty, hopelessness, and unhappiness the nation has fallen into, and to save the country from being dragged into an abyss as soon as possible. Because our country did not have a single day left to lose.

We could not let this decision be a decision of political elites. Both the primary election previously announced by our Chairman had to be implemented, and the candidate had to derive their legitimacy from the broadest decision-making will. It had to be a participatory decision-making process. The nation had to be the owner of the decision. Those who thought that the Turkish nation did not participate in politics or political decisions outside of the ballot box thought and hoped that very few people would go to the polls in the primary and that the legitimacy of my candidacy would remain weak.

Our rival, whose chemistry was disrupted by the decision to determine a candidate through a primary, set up a game without taking the nation's will into account. It thought of leaving the nation without options and put conspiracy cases into play to ensure it remained without a rival. It had me and my friends detained and arrested with methods of their old partners, such as baseless allegations and secret witnesses. However, this is how the mask fell and the truth was revealed.

"The nation rose up to show who the owner of the word, the authority, and the decision is"

Our nation saw this dirty game, which was constructed with panic and haste, understood what was going to happen to it, and with its high wisdom, understood that what was being targeted was more than just a political rival, and that the very will of the nation was being stolen.

That was when the nation rose up to show who the owner of the word, the authority, and the decision is. This public, which was said to 'participate in politics only from election to election,' first showed that it is the owner of Saraçhane, and filled the squares with crowds that increased for days. Then it went; on one day, March 23, with 15.5 million votes, it showed this government, which forgot the people, that it would not leave them without a rival in election competition. It thus declared the beginning of a democracy revolution that will go down in Turkey's and world's political history. The society's fears, anxieties, and hopelessness turned into courage, hope, excitement, and a will for change from Saraçhane to Maltepe, day by day, step by step. The nation once again took its destiny into its own hands and showed that it would draw the direction itself and would not surrender.

Those who read this attitude, this stance, and this will as an ordinary and temporary reaction are mistaken. There is more than just a reaction to my arrest in this attitude. The nation has seen that what was done was not just against me, but against itself, and has broken this dirty game. And it has not only broken the game but has also started to build a new life. It is now clearly declaring how it wants what comes next to be.

Our nation has shown that it will no longer walk with those who want to use the authority taken from it for more and longer ambitions of power. It is also sending a message about who it will walk with after fending off this threat and repelling this coup.

The most important thing it tells us is that it will participate in decisions more and more effectively from now on. It is saying, 'If you eliminate the state's and governments' control mechanisms, if you make yourself uncontrollable, I will come and balance you, I will control you.'

That is why we now need to think beyond the ballot boxes where the public goes from election to election and to establish new participation mechanisms. In our new life, we must strengthen the mechanisms for the nation to determine its own future.

We need a democracy strengthened by an effective and strong civil society, autonomous universities, objective and fair media loyal to professional ethics and principles, and effectively working consultation and negotiation mechanisms.

Such an environment that enables the public to participate effectively in decisions will further democratize and strengthen the state. A more democratic state will form the foundation of the great development and growth move we have been longing for for years.

''We will build a transparent and accountable administration together against the nation, which is the true owner of the state"

All of this is possible with a libertarian, pluralistic, democratic parliamentary system. To never again surrender our country to the desires and ambitions of a single person, we must establish checks and balances, diversify the participation channels of our citizens, and build the separation of powers clearly and definitively. We will do all of this with a revolution of justice and democracy. We will build a transparent and accountable administration together against the nation, which is the true owner of the state.

With the justice and democracy revolution we will realize, we will increase the competitiveness of our youth with all their peers in the world.

We will prevent the migration of our youth abroad, which is the biggest 'survival problem' our country is facing today.

We will turn our children, whom we have raised and grown with the opportunities of this nation for years, into soldiers who serve their own nation, not other nations. We will not only liberate and empower them within the country; we will make them the main actors in the construction of a democratic and strong state. Because a peaceful and wealthy society and equal and free citizens only come to life through a democratic and strong state.

The guarantee and insurance of all this is a pluralistic, new-generation democracy where fair and civilized competition takes place.

That is why our nation has risen up and started a democracy revolution. Our nation is standing with the labor pains of a new life.

It is standing to protect the Republic, which will bring peace, prosperity, and justice, with a strong democracy.

This noble nation, which is reborn from its ashes in every adversity, is standing for a new birth.

We will experience a revolution that will liberate and enrich our nation, make our country leap forward in the race of civilization, and make our state respectable, reliable, and strong again. A revolution where no one loses, and every citizen feels free, happy, and respectable. Let no one worry, those days are near. And much closer than thought!"