CHP's Düzce rally | Özgür Özel: "We will neither abandon President Ekrem nor the CHP, are we going to be afraid of you!"
Addressing those who told him to “get off the street” and those who disturbed the peace by making false reports before the rally in Düzce, Özel said, “I am the son of two retired teachers. He grew up in a boarding school; either with the salary the state gave to my mother and father or with the one who left the caravan. This child would normally be afraid of the threats of such grown men, if it were not for the seat of Gazi Mustafa Kemal! We will not abandon either President Ekrem or the CHP. We are the National Forces. We are coming from the battlefields, are we going to be afraid of you?”
While Özel was speaking, slogans such as “We are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers” were chanted.
Özel, who reacted to the 5th wave operation carried out against IMM this morning, drew attention to the timing of the operation:
"Why are they doing the operation on Saturday? To prevent the stock market from falling and the dollar from skyrocketing. If you are confident in what you do, why are you doing it on Saturday morning? If there was a defensible aspect to what you do, you would not do it at the crack of dawn."
Özel, reminding us of the tenders that “criminal organization leader” Aziz İhsan Aktaş won from AKP municipalities and the state, said, “The person who made these slanders, Aziz İhsan Aktaş, won tenders in these municipalities of ours before the elections and then had them abandoned. They are bringing our mayors to jail because he won these tenders,” and he listed the tenders that Aktaş won one by one.
Özgür Özel's reaction to the 5th wave operation on IMM: "Why are they doing the operation on Saturday? To prevent the stock market from falling and the dollar from skyrocketing. If you trust in what you do, why are you doing it on Saturday morning?"
"The person who made these slanders, Aziz İhsan Aktaş, is the one who made the tenders in these municipalities of ours before the elections… pic.twitter.com/cufZw78hKp
— Medyascope (@medyascope) May 31, 2025
Before Özel's speech, CHP Düzce Provincial Chairman Özcan Dağıstanlı took the podium and read the message of IMM Chairman Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is being held in Marmara Prison in Silivri. Highlights from İmamoğlu's message are as follows:
They think that walls and bars will be able to separate us. They think that Ekrem İmamoğlu will forget his love for the country. The nation will forget him and his services. They think that the one-man regime will continue forever. They will become prosecutors, judges, economists whenever they want, and they will be able to drag the country into an inextricable abyss. They should not get their hopes up. They can label us as a 'criminal organization' as much as they want, the citizens will not be fed up with these slanders.
İmamoğlu defeated these opportunists four times and will continue to do so. They mobilized all the resources at their disposal in every election period, but they still couldn't bend my wrist. Now they are resorting to unimaginable tricks. Come on! Since the entire judicial mechanism is at your disposal, have the indictment prepared as soon as possible. Let the whole world see who is right and who is wrong.
Our foreheads are clear, our heads are held high, the process is getting longer and longer with the indictment they cannot fill. Fear does not help death. Look, their fear is so great that what they have not done? First, they canceled my 30-year diploma, they threw us in prison before there was even an indictment, then they even blocked me on social media, they tried to ban the posters because they were afraid of my voice and appearance. They are in such a panic that they are imposing a visit ban on me in prison. But their calculations do not work, they cannot work. Those who underestimate this nation will soon learn the bitter truth of what a mistake they made.
The first person to take the podium at the Düzce rally was Ankara Metropolitan Municipality (ABB) Mayor Mansur Yavaş. Yavaş criticized the IMM operations by asking, “Why are operations only carried out against CHP municipalities?” and asked, “Aren’t AKP municipalities giving tenders to this man who is called the ‘leader of a criminal organization’?”
Underlining that they demanded “justice”, Yavaş said, “They were kept in prison because they used their constitutional rights, why did you keep these children inside? We must eliminate the double standards, we want justice to be established as soon as possible.”
Yavaş continued his words as follows:
“There is such a thing as the presumption of innocence. Until the Supreme Court approves a person’s sentence, everyone is innocent in the eyes of the law. Detention is an exception. It is not like that now. People are being declared leaders of a criminal organization while still at the prosecutor’s office. Their Twitter accounts and photos are being banned. This is completely against the Constitution.”
Yavaş also talked about his actions in Ankara:
“Students were left without shelter in Ankara, dormitories were not enough, we immediately took action and placed them in our guesthouses. Now they have submitted a bill to the Turkish Grand National Assembly so that municipalities cannot open dormitories. When I took office, the number of nurseries in the municipality was 0, now it is 40.”
Medyascope
