Turkish police fire tear gas as they storm offices of main opposition party

Police stormed the offices of Turkey’s main opposition CHP party, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at party supporters and officials who had been holed up inside for three days.

It was a violent end on Sunday to a standoff between members of the Republican Peoples’ Party, or CHP, and a leadership team appointed by an appeals court, escalating tensions between the opposition and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Supporters had barricaded the courtyard entrance with buses and the building with furniture.

Footage taken by local media in the courtyard and inside the building showed clouds of tear gas as riot police stormed through the premises, before journalists were removed by the police.

Once the raid began, supporters attempted to resist the police by spraying them with fire extinguishers, but were quickly stopped.

Doors, furniture and the ground floor windows were destroyed in the melee.

Among those inside the building was Ozgur Ozel, elected as party chairman in November 2023 but dismissed by the court ruling.

A video from inside his office at the start of the raid shows him being served the court order removing him, which he promptly ripped up.

Leaving party headquarters to cheers from supporters outside, Mr Ozel told journalists: “We are leaving (the building) now only to reclaim it in such a way that no one will be able to meddle again.

“When we return, neither this administration nor the administration’s collaborators will dare do this once more.”

Mr Ozel and his supporters then marched to parliament about five miles away, joined by hundreds of passers-by despite heavy rain and hail.

Before arriving at parliament, he stopped at the National Sovereignty Park where he asked the crowd if they were willing to rebuild the party for a third time.

The CHP was first established in 1923 by Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but was shut down in a 1980 military coup, before re-emerging in 1992.

Outside the legislature, Mr Ozel rallied a crowd of hundreds, telling them that the CHP was “de facto shuttered” but would be re-established.

Even if ousted as the chairman of the CHP, Mr Ozel is still an elected legislator from the western province of Manisa as well as the party’s group speaker.

The appeals court on Thursday nullified Mr Ozel’s election as CHP chairman, suspending him and members of the party’s executive board.

The court ruling said Mr Ozel should be replaced by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, his predecessor, who led the party for 13 years but never won any national elections.