Turkey intensified its crackdown on anti-government protests on Friday, arresting the lawyer of the jailed Istanbul mayor and targeting more journalists, as the country faces its biggest wave of unrest in more than a decade.

Nine days after the arrest and subsequent jailing of Istanbul's popular opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, demonstrators were again out on the streets on Thursday night, despite a growing sense of fear.

Overnight, police raided more homes, and Imamoglu -- seen as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's biggest political rival -- said his lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan had been "detained on fictitious grounds", in a post on X published via his legal team.

"As if the coup against democracy was not enough, they cannot tolerate the victims defending themselves. The evil that a handful of incompetent people are inflicting on our country is growing," the mayor wrote.

"Release my lawyer immediately!"

It was not clear on what grounds Pehlivan had been detained but opposition broadcaster Halk TV said it was linked to allegations of "laundering assets originating from a crime".

He was later freed on condition that he does not leave the country.

The Istanbul Bar Association, meanwhile, said that 20 minors had been arrested between March........

© Al Monitor