Hasan Mutlu, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) mayor of Istanbul’s Bayrampaşa district, has been jailed pending trial along with two dozen others in a corruption investigation that critics say is part of an expanding crackdown on the country’s largest opposition force.
Police launched coordinated raids on Sept. 13 across Istanbul, seizing documents and detaining suspects as part of an inquiry into alleged bribery, embezzlement, fraud and bid-rigging at the Bayrampaşa municipality, according to state media and international outlets. A court subsequently ordered Mutlu and 25 others into pretrial detention on Sept. 16, while 19 detainees were released under judicial controls such as periodic check-ins and travel bans. Mutlu has rejected the accusations as baseless and politically driven.
Turkey’s Interior Ministry suspended Mutlu from office the next day, saying the measure would remain in place while the investigation proceeds. The Bayrampaşa city council is expected to convene to select an acting mayor.
Mutlu was elected in the March 2024 local polls as the CHP made sweeping gains nationwide, including in Istanbul. His detention comes amid a months-long series of arrests targeting CHP-run municipalities and officials, which the party describes as an attempt to neutralize elected opposition figures following those electoral advances. Rights advocates and legal scholars have said the arrests, combined with broader legal pressure on the opposition, risk further eroding pluralism ahead of future national votes. The government says prosecutors and courts act independently.
Other CHP figures jailed pending trial in recent months include Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a leading rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and several district mayors in the city and beyond. Hundreds of municipal employees and party affiliates have also been detained or arrested since the spring, according to media tallies.
Mutlu reiterated his denial after the court’s decision. “There is neither concrete evidence nor a valid legal reason,” he wrote on X, framing the case as retaliation for refusing to yield to pressure.
