ISTANBUL (AP) — The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party completed his 25-day “March for Justice” from the capital Ankara to Istanbul Sunday and joined hundreds of thousands of supporters at a rally against a large-scale government crackdown on opponents. Republican People’s Party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu launched the 425-kilometre (265 miles) march after a parliamentarian was imprisoned in June, but the outcry has since grown to protest the massive crackdown that began after last summer’s failed coup attempt. Tens of thousands of people converged on the Turkish city of Istanbul at the end of a 450km (280-mile) protest march against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “If only there was no need for this march and there was democracy, media freedoms, if civic society groups could freely express their opinions,” Kilicdaroglu told The Associated Press as he headed Friday into the final stretch of his marathon march. "If you are launching a march for terrorists and for their supporters, something which you have never thought about doing against terrorist groups, you can convince no one that your aim is justice," he said. Parliament member Enis Berberoglu was sentenced last month to 25 years in prison for revealing state secrets after the government accused him of leaking footage to an opposition newspaper suggesting that Turkey's intelligence service had smuggled weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria. In a New York Times op-ed Friday, Kilicdaroglu called the case against Berberoglu “the last straw in a series of antidemocratic moves” by Erdogan’s government “targeting tens of thousands of Turkish citizens — politicians, journalists, academics, activists or ordinary citizens.”

Following last year’s failed coup, the government imposed a state of emergency leading to the arrest of more than 50,000 people and the dismissal of some 100,000 civil servants. Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin said 15,000 police had been assigned to assure security at the Maltepe meeting.
The 450 km-long Turkish March for Justice concludes in Istanbul at a mass rally attended by hundreds of thousands of people.