Turkish police storm CHP headquarters and block opposition rally after court ousts leader Ozel

Riot police stormed the headquarters of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in Ankara, firing teargas, pepper spray and plastic pellets to force out the party's leader, Ozgur Ozel, who had barricaded himself inside with supporters. The raid on Sunday followed an Ankara appeals court ruling that annulled the CHP's 2023 leadership congress, removed Ozel, and reinstated his predecessor, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who lost the 2023 presidential runoff to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On Tuesday, police used water cannon to stop people gathering for a speech by Ozel in the western city of Izmir, a CHP stronghold. Crowds heading to Cumhuriyet Square found their way blocked by steel barriers and riot police, and the pro-opposition broadcaster Halk TV showed demonstrators being soaked by water cannon; local media reported the use of pepper spray. Undeterred on arriving in the city, Ozel said he would "go wherever the people are waiting," and later addressed thousands of supporters at a nearby square.

Ozel called on Kilicdaroglu to put the leadership to a fresh vote. "Don't divide the party, don't stop our march to power," he said, urging an immediate congress of the party's roughly two million members. The interior minister said teargas and rubber bullets had been used at the headquarters "at the request" of Kilicdaroglu's camp.

The CHP, founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923, won Turkey's 2024 municipal elections, holding key cities including Istanbul and Ankara. Its Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu -- widely seen as Erdogan's likeliest challenger -- has been jailed since March 2025 on corruption charges. The party is level with Erdogan's ruling AKP in recent polls; though the next election is not due until 2028, many expect Erdogan to push for an early vote. Authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the unrest, including allegations of unauthorised demonstrations and resistance to police.

The confrontation capped a week of escalating crisis that began when the Ankara appeals court voided the 2023 congress, a sequence the president's critics see as the latest legal assault on a party whose elected officials and members have faced waves of prosecutions. Macit Karaahmetoglu, a Social Democrat member of Germany's Bundestag who heads the German-Turkish Society, called Ozel's removal "a targeted attack on democracy," accusing Erdogan of "using the country's judiciary as a weapon." The government insists Turkey's courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure.