Ekrem İmamoğlu, Mayor of İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality has been proclaimed winner of the Fifth edition of the Mayor Paweł Adamowicz Award during a ceremony held in Gdańsk.
Congratulating him, Jelena Drenjanin (EPP/SE) Chair of the Working Group on Türkiye of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and member of the Jury of the award said "Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu embodies the values of democracy, liberty, rule of law, freedom of expression and opinion and human dignity in the face of rising political oppression in Türkiye. Imamoglu is a leader who lives and works with the values and conviction of Pawel Adamowicz. I warmly congratulate him for his courage, for his commitment to democratic values and his loyalty to the hopes and aspirations of the people of Istanbul." Drenjanin recalled that she has tried twice – and been denied twice – the possibility to visit Mr İmamoğlu in prison.
The EPP-CoR Group has long condemned democratic backsliding and arrests of opposition Mayors in Türkiye as well as the use of the judiciary as a political weapon to undermine the rule of law. 27 other democratically elected mayors have been removed from power by the Turkish government since the last local elections, 11 of them replaced by government trustees. Hundreds of local civil servants have also been arrested in opposition municipalities, in a clear attempt to curtail any space for dissent in Türkiye.
Aleksandra Dulkiewicz (EPP/PL), Mayor of Gdansk who hosted the ceremony said "Seven years after the tragic events that took place not far from here, memory may erase some images. That is why we have established the Paweł Adamowicz Award. It is a distinction for people and institutions who, in their daily work, not only talk about the values close to President Paweł Adamowicz, but actually practice them: democracy, freedom, tolerance, the fight against hatred, and above all, respect and equality of every human being."
Magdalena Adamowicz, MEP and wife of the late Mayor said "Each of the nominees in the 5th edition of the Paweł Adamowicz Award proves with their lives that the values that Paweł lived by, and the unwavering courage in defending them, are universal, human values, important in every culture, religion and political system. From the bottom of my heart, I congratulate and thank the nominees. What they do and what price they pay for it reminds us of one thing: we must never stop supporting people who save our civilization."
A special mention of the jury went to Mary Crilly, founder and director of the Centre for the Prevention of Sexual Violence in Cork.
About The Mayor Paweł Adamowicz Award
The proclamation ceremony is part of the commemorations for Mayor Paweł Adamowicz, the long-serving Mayor of the City of Gdańsk and member of the EPP-CoR Group who was assassinated on 13 January 2019. The Award represents a strong signal of hope for all elected representatives, officials and ordinary citizens who, despite the risks, live to make democracy work at a local level by supporting better and more open communities.
The award is a partnership between the City of Gdańsk, the CoR and the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), which the City of Gdańsk joined under his mayorship.
The Award ceremony will be held in Brussels in March as part of the CoR plenary session.