'We hold onto one another and keep fighting,' says wife of jailed Istanbul mayor |
Turkish democracy has taken a heavy beating since the jailing of Istanbul's popular opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, his wife told AFP, saying it has been painful for his family but that the ordeal has made them stronger.
"It's an extremely difficult time for our children and for me... but we hold onto one another," Dilek Kaya Imamoglu, 51, told AFP in her first interview with foreign media.
Her husband -- the only politician seen as capable of beating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- faces 2,430 years in prison from a blizzard of charges many see as a bid to stop him standing against Erdogan in 2028.
But Dilek Kaya Imamoglu said they have taken strength from her husband's message "to never lose hope".
Imamoglu's arrest in March, just before he was named as the main opposition CHP's candidate for the presidential race, sparked Turkey's worst bout of street unrest since 2013.
He is accused of heading a sprawling criminal network and exerting influence "like an octopus" in a 4,000-page indictment that covers everything from graft and bribery to money laundering. The first court hearing is set for March 9.
But his wife warned that "the public conscience cannot be silenced. These hardships do not lead me to despair but to........