BERLIN, March 30, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Several hundred people attended a protest in Berlin on Sunday in support of Turkish opposition leader Ekrem Imamoglu, whose arrest has sparked Turkey's worst street unrest in over a decade.

Organisers said around 1,000 people attended the demonstration in central Berlin, while police put the figure at around 400.

Many wore Imamoglu masks or carried placards with slogans such as "We are all Imamoglu" and denouncing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"With the Erdogan government, Turkey is going in the wrong direction," said retired tradesman Muharrem Dogan, 75.

"We want democracy, the rule of law and order again. We are fighting against the Erdogan machine," said Dogan, who has been living in Germany since 1971.

"I am here to defend democracy in Turkey," said archaeology student Sebnem Turhan, 27.

"We are here because of the mass incarcerations of the protesters and all kinds of violations of democratic rights in Turkey," she said.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Turkey since Imamoglu was arrested on March 19 on corruption charges his supporters say are false.

The mass protests have prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.

Widely seen as the only politician capable of challenging Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as the opposition CHP party's candidate for the 2028 race on the day he was jailed.

Around three million people with Turkish heritage live in Germany, many of them the descendants of "guest workers" invited under a massive economic programme in the 1960s and 70s.

Turkish voters in Germany have historically been strong supporters of Erdogan, and 67 percent of them voted for him in Turkey's last election in 2023.