Thousands of Turks swarmed a central Istanbul square on Thursday in solidarity with the city's opposition mayor after he was banned from politics ahead of next year's presidential election.
A criminal court on Wednesday sentenced Ekrem Imamoglu to more than two years in prison and banned him from politics for the same length of time for "insulting a public official" in 2019.
Imamoglu will continue to serve as mayor of Turkey's largest city while his appeal is heard in a case linked to a hugely contested election in which his initial victory was annulled.
The appeal could be heard at any time and destroy any bid to run in the June presidential campaign.
The US State Department said it was "deeply troubled and disappointed" by the potential removal of one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's biggest rivals from the political scene.
Germany called it "a heavy blow to democracy" while France urged Turkey to "reverse its slide away from the rule of law, democracy and respect for fundamental rights".
Turkey's fractured opposition has struggled to unite behind a single candidate to challenge Erdogan's two-decade rule in the upcoming vote.
Polls show that the 52-year-old Istanbul mayor was one of the more likely potential challengers to beat Erdogan in a head-to-head race.
But his secular CHP party's leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu – a bookish former civil servant who struggles in opinion polls – is still pushing hard for his own candidacy.
Meral Aksener of the nationalist Iyi (Good) Party has also seen her electoral ratings shoot up.
The fractured opposition has seized on the court case to try and spur their stuttering campaign.
Imamoglu and the leaders of six Turkish opposition parties walked out shoulder-to-shoulder through a crowd of supporters for a rally aimed at showing their defiance to Erdogan.
"I am absolutely not afraid of their illegitimate verdict," Imamoglu told the flag-waving crowd.
"I don't have judges to protect me, but I have 16 millions of Istanbulites and our nation behind me."
Snap polls show that Wednesday's ruling threatens to backfire on Erdogan.
The Turkish leader's own ratings have started to recover from a low reached during an economic crisis in the past year.
But a MetroPoll survey showed that even voters for Erodgan's Islamic-rooted AKP party believed that the case against the mayor was "political".
MetroPoll showed 28.3 percent of AKP voters thought the case was rooted in politics while 24.2 percent believed it was connected to "libel".
Only 17.6 percent nationally thought is was "libel".
For its part, the US said on Thursday expressed its dismay at the ban on Imamoglu.
"The United States is deeply troubled and disappointed by a Turkish court's verdict against Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, sentencing him to two years and seven months in prison and banning him from political activity," a US State Department spokesman said.
"We urge the government to cease prosecutions under criminal 'insult' laws, and to respect the rights and freedoms of all Turkish citizens, including by ensuring an open environment for public debate."
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
