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00:00We've been hearing this evening reports that protests that we've been seeing in Istanbul
00:04that they've spread to university on the outskirts of Ankara.
00:08What is the very latest there?
00:10Yes, that is correct.
00:12In Ankara, a full-scale battle has been raging for several hours in the grounds of the Middle
00:20East Technical University, a private university surrounded by forest on the outskirts of Ankara.
00:29Thousands of students and opposition supporters, non-students who have gone to the university,
00:36have been demonstrating against the arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul,
00:43yesterday.
00:45He was arrested and charged with fraud, bribery, membership of a criminal organization,
00:53and even having political links to the PKK, the Kurdish insurgency group.
01:00But his arrest and the filing of these charges come only days before he was expected to be
01:11officially nominated as the opposition's candidate in the next presidential election.
01:17The major opposition party to which he belongs is holding primaries on Sunday.
01:24Now, on the campus of the Middle East Technical University, the police have been firing rubber
01:32bullets, tear gas, pepper gas, and water cannon at the students.
01:37The students took shelter in the forests.
01:40The police fired tear gas canisters into the forests.
01:44My source among the students say some students fainted.
01:49Whether they lost consciousness because of the tear gas or the rubber bullets isn't known,
01:54but that some students have been injured by rubber bullets.
01:58The source said the police had prevented ambulances from coming onto the campus.
02:06It looks like a very ugly scene.
02:09Now, that is on the campus here in Ankara.
02:13In Istanbul, for the second night in a row, thousands of people have been protesting
02:19outside the Istanbul City Council offices, the offices of the detained mayor.
02:26The leader of the opposition, Özgür Özel, called on people to take to the streets
02:32to reclaim their rights, but he said they should do this without resorting to violence.
02:39In his first response to these protests, which have been going on for two days now,
02:46President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the opposition of failing to respond to the
02:52charges against Ekrem Ä°mamoÄŸlu with legal argument, saying that the opposition just
02:59uses political slogans to provoke people and to deceive the public at large.
03:08However, Human Rights Watch, which has examined the charges against Ekrem Ä°mamoÄŸlu,
03:15says they are politically motivated and has accused President Erdogan
03:21of weaponising the criminal justice system.
03:26Jasper, we leave it there for now.
03:27Thank you so much for joining us with all of that.
03:29That's our correspondent in Ankara, Jasper Mortimer.
03:33Well, for the first time ever,