Turk­ish au­thor­i­ties de­tained sev­er­al jour­nal­ists from their homes, a me­dia work­ers’ union re­port­ed Mon­day, in what it said was a crack­down amid es­ca­lat­ing protests trig­gered by the im­pris­on­ment of the may­or of Is­tan­bul and top ri­val to Pres­i­dent Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan.

On Sun­day, a court for­mal­ly ar­rest­ed May­or Ekrem Imamoglu and or­dered him jailed pend­ing a tri­al on cor­rup­tion charges. His de­ten­tion on Wednes­day sparked the largest wave of street demon­stra­tions in Turkey in more than a decade, deep­en­ing con­cerns over democ­ra­cy and the rule of law.

In an ap­par­ent es­ca­la­tion of the gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to the grow­ing protests, the Disk-Basin-Is union said at least eight re­porters and pho­to­jour­nal­ists were de­tained in what it said was an “at­tack on press free­doms and the peo­ple’s right to learn the truth.”