ISTANBUL (Dispatches) -- 
Thousands of Turks took to the streets of Istanbul and Ankara over the weekend to protest the government’s escalating crackdown on independent media.
Jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu used a letter published Sunday to allege that a multi-billion-dollar fund scandal is directly tied to the judicial operations targeting his office.
Police estimated at least 3,000 people attended demonstrations in each city on Saturday, with crowds composed largely of journalists, human rights activists and opposition party members carrying photographs of imprisoned reporters and chanting slogans including “Enough!” and “We will not be silenced”. 
The Turkish Journalists’ Union says authorities have jailed 11 journalists over the past two months and shut down several media outlets, including a police raid this month on Halk TV that halted broadcasts and installed a state administrator.
İmamoğlu, who has been held in custody since March 2025, made his allegations in a letter to Sözcü columnist Saygı Öztürk that was published Sunday. 
He described the fund embezzlement as a “special design” with political, administrative, bureaucratic and judicial dimensions, and claimed a concrete link between the heavy price he has paid and the operations targeting the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
“There is a concrete connection between the heavy price paid and the operations targeting the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality,” İmamoğlu wrote, alleging that while he faced years of detention, those behind the fund scandal faced no action — not even detention.
The letter focused on the timing of stock market movements. İmamoğlu claimed that after his detention on March 19, 2025, the Borsa Istanbul index fell 16.3 percent in two days, wiping out $31.5 billion in a week, while shares heavily weighted by the brokerage TERA rose to record highs. 
He alleged a similar pattern occurred during debates over the opposition CHP’s legal status, including a $1.87 billion TERA purchase.
Imamoğlu called for an investigation into who conducted those trades and with what funds, saying the Capital Markets Board and the Central Securities Depository possess the details. He estimated the total fund scandal at approximately $17 billion and claimed it affected nearly two million people.
The letter also addressed the timing of his own prosecution. İmamoğlu alleged the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office sent a letter to the Capital Markets Board about the fund issue on February 26, 2025, but failed to pursue it, while simultaneously accelerating efforts to revoke his university diploma — a move that preceded his detention by one day. He noted the prosecutor at the time later became justice minister.
İmamoğlu rejected allegations that he had created a fund for his presidential campaign, saying no such money was found in his home or among his colleagues.
The letter was published as İmamoğlu’s four-day defense in the main trial against him concluded and ahead of a November 2 hearing where the prosecutor’s opinion is expected. He remains the most prominent figure in a broader crackdown on opposition figures, journalists and media outlets that critics say has intensified in recent months.