Turkey’s Erdogan administration was on March 24 confronted by the rising risk that it will turn top opposition politician Ekrem Imamoglu into a martyr as it continued with his imprisonment on corruption charges in the face of a sixth day of massive street protests.

The dilemma was summed up by Henri J. Barkley, a Turkey analyst at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank, who said of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “Mr Erdogan is taking an enormous risk by imprisoning his main opposition leader.

“The risks are the following. One, he will galvanize the opposition and make Mr. Imamoglu far, far, far more popular than he is now. It will make him, essentially, a martyr. Number two, this is going to have a serious impact on the Turkish economy that was just at the beginning of a recovery…

“If Mr. Erdogan is willing to risk this much, it is because he is confident that the [Donald] Trump administration is not going to criticize him. Whereas in the past, Republican or Democratic administrations would have taken a very dim view of this type of repression and arrest, the Trump administration has made it clear that it doesn’t really care what strongmen do in their own countries.”

The demonstrations are notable for the number of young people who’ve been willing to repeatedly risk arrest to come out and demand the release of Imamoglu and the pursuit of genuine democracy in Turkey, ruled by Erdogan for 22 years.

Irmak, a 22-year-old university student, who has never known a Turkey without Erdogan in power, told the BBC World Service: "I don’t know what he [Erdogan] did 20 years ago, but nowadays, he is just a dictator."

She added that she and two friends with her at the main Istanbul demonstration on March 24 had all turned on location sharing on their phones because he risk of being detained by police was very high.

"We don’t feel safe as protesters in Turkey,” said one of the friends, Ozge, “but we’re still here."

The trio were holding signs referencing the large Gezi anti-regime protests of 2013, which started in Istanbul over the demolition of a park and spread nationwide.

"We are the fruits of the trees of the Gezis," Irmak was further reported as saying. "We are here to protect democracy. It’s not just about Ekrem Imamoglu. It’s about Turkey’s democracy."

By some accounts, the demonstrations are not quite as big as the Gezi protests, but, as bne IntelliNews has written, if the protesters persist in turning up day by day, the regime will not stop short of taking lives in its “security” response.

Turkey's Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya on March 24 stepped up his ministry’s warnings, saying of the protests on social media that constitutionally they “abused the right to demonstrate” and that "such actions are aimed at disrupting the peace and security of our people.

"We are clearly warning you from here: Let no one try to use our youth and our people as a shield for their own political ambitions."

For his part, Erdogan made some menacing comments, saying: "It is clear that the main opposition cannot be handed [the] duty of running the state, let alone municipalities.

The opposition's "show" would end eventually and they will feel shame for the "evil" done to the country, he added, saying the reckoning for the disturbance and damage caused would include a legal dimension.

The regime appears to have mounted a concerted effort to stop images of the protests spreading, issuing warnings over coverage to TV stations, detaining a substantial number of photographers and moving to block hundreds of social media accounts.

Imamoglu, 54, whom the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has made its presidential candidate despite his incarceration and the stripping of his position as mayor of Istanbul by the interior ministry, is often described as charismatic and it is clear 71-year-old Erdogan sees him as a real threat. Though the CHP is secular-based, unlike Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), Imamoglu is known for inclusive, unifying rhetoric, with a dash of humour. He has had much success connecting with the pious side of the country.

The international response to the regime’s move against Imamoglu remained weak on March 24 though Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock turned up the criticism from Berlin in a post on X, saying Turkey's commitment to pursuing EU membership "sounds increasingly hollow" in light of the arrest of Erdogan’s main rival.

A country that sees its future in the EU "must uphold the rule of law", she added, also stating: "Political competitors do not belong in prison or before the courts."