Osman Kavala remains in prison

Turkish civil rights activist Osman Kavala remains in prison. A court in Istanbul on Friday refused to release the cultural activist and businessman, who has been imprisoned without a verdict for four years, because of the alleged “seriousness of the guilt.” Prosecutors and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in particular accuse Kavala of leading the organization of the Gezi protests in 2013 and of being involved in the alleged coup attempt in 2016. Human rights organizations, on the other hand, criticize the trial as politically motivated.

It was the first court hearing since the diplomatic row over Kavala’s detention. In October, the ambassadors of ten Western countries, including the United States and Germany, called on President Erdogan to release Kavala. Erdogan then threatened the diplomats with expulsion. The trial day was also exciting because the Council of Europe had threatened the government in Ankara with infringement proceedings in September due to the Kavala trial. The deadline for this expires on November 30. That is when the next three-day session of the Council of Europe body responsible for such cases begins.

The Council of Europe’s warning came in response to Ankara’s failure to implement a European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling calling for Kavala’s immediate release. The decision, issued in December 2019, became legally binding in May 2020. But Turkey is ignoring the ruling, even though it is bound by decisions of the ECtHR as a member of the Council of Europe.

Osman Kavala was arrested on October 18, 2017, and was placed in Silivri Maximum Security Prison near Istanbul on November 1, 2017. In February last year, he and several co-defendants in the Gezi trial were surprisingly acquitted, and an appeals court ordered the trial to be reopened. Shortly thereafter, it was decided to merge the trials surrounding the Gezi protests and the coup attempt.

Kavala refuses to participate: No fair trial

Kavala did not attend Friday’s hearing. Since it was not a “fair trial,” he felt it was “pointless to attend the upcoming hearings,” lawyer Deniz Tolga Aytöre said on behalf of his client. In Kavala’s place, his wife Ayşe Buğra, a renowned academic, was present in the courtroom. Several ambassadors and opposition MPs also watched the hearing on the spot. The trial will continue on January 17, 2022.