Hundreds in Turkey protest the arrest and ouster of opposition mayor

ISTANBUL — Hundreds gathered Thursday in Istanbul to protest against the arrest and removal from office of a mayor from Turkey's main opposition party for his alleged links to a banned Kurdish militant group.

Ahmet Ozer, mayor of Istanbul's Esenyurt district and a member of the Republican People's Party, or CHP, was detained on Wednesday by anti-terrorist police over his alleged connection to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

Turkey's government on Thursday replaced Ozer with Istanbul's deputy governor, a move the CHP's leader, Ozgur Ozel and other politicians described as a ''coup.''

The mayor's arrest comes as Turkey is debating a tentative peace process to end a 40-year conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state that has led to tens of thousands of deaths.

Demonstrators filled a square in Esenyurt after the government banned a rally outside the municipality building. Some carried banners that read: ''(We want) an elected mayor not an appointed mayor'' and called for the resignation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.

''In our view, this (government), which acts against the law and violates the constitution, has carried out a political coup. We will never accept it,'' said Tulay Hatimogullari, the leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party, whose supporters joined the rally in a show of solidarity.

Ozel, whose CHP made significant gains in local elections earlier this year, called for early elections.

Ozer, 64, is a former academic originally from Van in eastern Turkey. He was elected mayor of Esenyurt, a western suburb in Istanbul's European side, in March local elections.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office said an investigation found Ozer had maintained contacts with PKK figures for more than 10 years, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Politicians and members of Turkey's pro-Kurdish movement have frequently been targeted over alleged links to the PKK, which is considered a terror organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.

Legislators have been stripped of their parliamentary seats and mayors removed from office. Several lawmakers as well as thousands of party members have been jailed on terror-related charges since 2016.

Other opposition parties have been largely unscathed but the CHP metropolitan mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, is currently appealing a prison sentence and political ban imposed by a court in December 2022 for ''insulting'' members of Turkey's election board in 2019.

Imamoglu accused Erdogan's government of ''plotting a dirty game" to snatch Esenyurt municipality away from the opposition ''by declaring (Ozer) a terrorist for fictitious reasons.''