29/08/2025 (Agence Europe) – A delegation of European mayors, led by Jaume Collboni, mayor of Barcelona and vice-president of Eurocities, travelled to Istanbul this week to express their solidarity with Turkish local councillors, in particular Ekrem İmamoğlu, the imprisoned mayor of Istanbul, according to a press release published by Eurocities on Friday 29 August. Joined by representatives from Athens, Brescia, Budapest, Sofia, Timișoara, Utrecht and Zagreb, they met Turkish mayors and Mr İmamoğlu’s family, calling for his immediate release along with that of the twenty other local councillors detained. Outside Silivri prison, where Mr İmamoğlu has been incarcerated since March 2025, Mr Collboni denounced the “unjust” imprisonment of a “democratically elected” leader. This mission comes against a backdrop of increasing repression against the opposition in Turkey, where targeted arrests of mayors and local officials have sparked international outrage. (LC)