Twelve days after the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the main opponent and political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power in Turkey since 2003, turnout at protests has not waned – quite the contrary.

In Istanbul, there were several hundred thousand people in the streets on Saturday, March 29, transforming the megalopolis' immense Maltepe Park, located on the Asian side of the Bosphorus Strait, into a sea of red and white, the colors of the Turkish flag. This stream of people, men and women, young and old, grew bigger and bigger all afternoon, heading for the open-air podium where Özgür Özel, the leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), harangued the crowd for an hour and a half in his warm, husky voice, urging them to continue "the march to power" and "write history."

In a firm tone, he announced – to the sound of applause – that the day's demonstration had mobilized almost 2.2 million people. This came as a show of strength for the opposition party which, over and above the dispute over the demonstrators' numbers, took place in a calm atmosphere that had not been seen since the protests started. The demonstration was authorized at the last minute by Istanbul's governor, and so the huge gathering of all the opposition's protesters – from small anarchist groups to ultranationalist movements – offered a rare moment of levity after days and nights of tension and clashes with the police.

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