Riot police erected steel barriers and used water cannon to prevent crowds from gathering to hear a speech by the deposed leader of Turkey's main opposition party in Izmir's central Cumhuriyet Square on May 26. Özgür Özel and the core leadership of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) were removed from their posts five days earlier by a court order that they charged was politically motivated. Following the court ruling, Özel and his supporters barricaded themselves inside the CHP headquarters in Ankara. Police stormed the building on May 24, firing rubber bullets and tear-gas in a violent end to the standoff.

The Ankara appeals court overturned a 2023 party congress vote in which Özel was elected as CHP leader. The ruling replaced him with his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, sparking anger among party supporters. Özel, 51, who succeeded the 77-year-old Kılıçdaroğlu after 13 years of mostly ineffective opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called on Kılıçdaroğlu to hold another party leadership vote. The legal case, which centred on irregularities in the vote, is seen by Erdoğan's critics as the latest move in an ongoing attack on the CHP, which has seen several elected officials and party followers imprisoned. (EuroNews, BBC News, AP)

See our last report on the crackdown on political opposition in Turkey.