Turkish opposition leader hails 'most peaceful protest'

By Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA (AA) - The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party on Tuesday defended his 25-day march from Ankara to Istanbul as “the most peaceful protest of the world”.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the thousands of marchers who joined him on the 450 kilometer (280 mile) trek did not react to repeated provocations.

“We did the most peaceful protest of the world,” he told a meeting of CHP lawmakers at the parliament in Ankara. “They threw stones, they carried out provocations, they conducted attacks.”

During the march, Kilicdaroglu called on supporters to remain calm in the face of provocation, including not reacting to counter-protests other than to applaud them.

Senior figures in the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party criticized the protest, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said it was a march “for terrorists and for their supporters”.

However, the CHP leader said he was “proud of conducting this kind of conscious and patriotic protest.”

The march was launched on June 15 following the imprisonment of CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu.

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for revealing state secrets by passing images to the Cumhuriyet newspaper concerning the January 2014 search of National Intelligence Organization trucks en route to Syria.

At the end of the journey, Kilicdaroglu held a rally near Istanbul’s Maltepe prison, where Berberoglu is held.