Hundreds of thousands of people joined the culmination
of a 25-day "March for Justice" against the government of President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday.
The people gathered
in Istanbul demonstrating against the mass dismissals and imprisonments
that followed last summer's failed military coup.
The
opposition leader of the Republican People's Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu,
led a 450-kilometer walk from Ankara to Istanbul after his party’s
lawmaker, Enis Berberoglu, was sentenced to 25 years in jail on charges
of revealing state secrets after he allegedly leaked documents to an
opposition newspaper suggesting the Turkish government had armed
jihadists in Syria.
"The last day of our Justice March is a new beginning, a new step," said Kilicdaroglu, a 68-year-old veteran politician.
"Rights, law, justice," the crowd chanted back.
Erdogan has accused the marchers of supporting terrorism.