On a dry late August afternoon, we stood outside Silivri — the high-security prison west of Istanbul, where Ekrem İmamoğlu, the elected leader of Europe’s largest city, has been detained for months.

Behind us, Turkish civil society leaders held aloft banners; beside us were colleagues from his municipal team; and around us were a quiet but resolute crowd of supporters, including six other local leaders from large cities across Europe.

It wasn’t the visit we had planned, but it was powerful all the same.

In that moment, what struck us most wasn’t just the absence of the man we had traveled to see — and to whom national authorities had denied us access. It was the presence of his values echoing from every voice that spoke.

Hope, we realized, isn’t incarcerated by prison walls. And everything we witnessed only deepened our resolve to stand by our fellow city leaders and defend local democracy.

What we heard in Istanbul wasn’t despair but moral strength. İmamoğlu’s colleagues told us of how he remains engaged even behind bars, how he still asks about city projects and encourages his team to stay the course, insisting that the work of building a more inclusive, sustainable Istanbul continues.