Hundreds of thousands demonstrate against Turkish President Erdogan

CGTN

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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.