ANKARA: A Turkish court on Thursday rejected the ouster of the Istanbul branch leaders of the country’s main opposition party over alleged irregularities in its leadership congress.
The ruling follows clashes on Monday at the Istanbul headquarters of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), as protesters tried to stop a court-ordered administrator from entering the building.
The CHP, which won a huge victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party in 2024 local elections, had vowed to fight the dismissal of its Istanbul branch leadership.
But the party has been facing a growing number of graft investigations since the jailing of Istanbul’s popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, seen as the sole candidate with a realistic chance at beating Erdogan at the ballot box.
“The annulation of the Istanbul regional congress has been definitely overturned today,” CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said, ahead of an extraordinary congress set for September 21.
But a lawyer for Gursel Tekin, a former senior CHP member who was named a state-appointed trustee to take control of the party’s Istanbul branch, rejected the ruling, saying on X that “the temporary injunction... remains valid.”
The latest ruling could have an impact on the court ruling expected Monday in Ankara in a separate case aiming to oust the CHP’s national leadership.
If successful, the case alleging vote rigging at the CHP’s November 2023 congress could unseat party leader Ozel and several other senior party figures.
The CHP denies the allegations, which critics see as a politically motivated bid to undermine the party as its popularity has grown.
Turkiye court rejects ouster of opposition party leadership
https://arab.news/jg9q8
Turkiye court rejects ouster of opposition party leadership
- The ruling follows clashes on Monday at the Istanbul headquarters of the opposition Republican People’s Party
- Protesters tried to stop a court-ordered administrator from entering the building
Israeli strikes killed eight people in south Lebanon: state media
- Israeli strikes killed eight people in Lebanon on Thursday as Israel renewed its evacuation call for vast areas of the country’s south, long a stronghold of Hezbollah
BEIRUT: Israeli strikes killed eight people in Lebanon on Thursday as Israel renewed its evacuation call for vast areas of the country’s south, long a stronghold of Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed militant group, which dragged Lebanon into the regional war on Monday when it launched an attack on Israel, said it had launched missiles at positions in the Galilee area.
The National News Agency (NNA) reported that the mayor of a village in the Nabatieh region of south Lebanon and his wife were killed in one strike, while in a nearby village another strike killed two children and their parents.
The Lebanese health ministry said two people were killed by a strike on a car near the city of Zahle in the east of the country.
There were new strikes on the southern suburbs of the capital, Hezbollah’s main bastion, early on Thursday, NNA reported, with AFPTV footage showing smoke coming from the area.
It also said a pre-dawn Israeli drone strike hit an apartment in Beddawi, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in the north of Lebanon, killing senior Hamas official Wassim Atallah Al-Ali and his wife.
Also on Thursday, Israel renewed its warning to residents of hundreds of square kilometers (miles) of southern Lebanon to evacuate because of military action.
Arabic-language spokesman for the Israeli military Avichay Adraee posted on X: “Urgent warning to residents of southern Lebanon: you must immediately continue evacuating to the north of the Litani river.”
The warning included the cities of Tyre and Bint Jbeil.
On Tuesday, Israel’s military said it was creating a buffer zone inside Lebanon to protect Israeli residents.
The following day, it said troops from three divisions, including infantry, armored and engineering units were operating inside Lebanon.
