European rights court orders Turkey to free imprisoned businessman
Philanthropist and activist Osman Kavala has spent almost a decade in jail over charges rights groups say are politically motivated.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has mandated Turkey to promptly release Osman Kavala, a businessman and philanthropist who has been incarcerated for nearly a decade. The court highlighted that Kavala's situation revealed a "systemic problem" within Turkey.
Kavala received a life sentence in 2022 for his alleged involvement in nationwide protests in 2013 and a failed coup attempt three years later. Since his initial arrest and detention in 2017, both human rights organizations and Kavala himself have asserted that the charges against him are politically motivated.
On Tuesday, the ECHR declared his continued detention unlawful, stating that his rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression, and association had been violated. The court's ruling stated, "The measures taken against the applicant... had been predominantly motivated by an ulterior purpose, namely, to punish him for his role in the Gezi Park demonstrations and for expressing his opinions as a human rights defender, and to silence him." The court also deemed Kavala's aggravated life sentence as "inhuman and degrading treatment."
Rights advocates and opposition groups contend that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has increasingly used the judiciary as a tool to target critics and rivals. The ECHR noted that Kavala's case exposed a "systemic problem" in Turkey concerning the "detention and prosecution of political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists," further citing "structural shortcomings which affected the guarantees of independence and impartiality of the judiciary." The Turkish government, however, maintains the independence of its courts.
Kavala, 68, became a symbol of the government's crackdown on civil society in Turkey following his arrest in October 2017. He and others were accused of orchestrating and financing anti-government protests in 2013, which began in Istanbul's Gezi Park and subsequently spread across Turkey. These demonstrations presented the first significant challenge to Erdogan's rule, who was then Turkey's dominant prime minister and became its directly elected president the following year.
Amnesty International, a human rights group, states that prosecutors falsely claimed the Gezi Park protests were an attempt to overthrow the government. In 2019, the ECHR demanded Kavala's immediate release, characterizing his detention as arbitrary and politically motivated, a ruling Turkey did not implement. He was initially acquitted in February 2020 but was rearrested within hours on new charges related to a failed military coup in 2016. His acquittal regarding the Gezi Park protests was overturned in January 2021, leading to his life sentence in April 2022, a conviction now declared "null and void" by the ECHR.
Reacting to the latest ECHR ruling, Eve Geddie of Amnesty International stated, "This obstruction of justice must end. Turkey's authorities, including judicial and prosecutorial, must act to free Osman Kavala immediately and unconditionally."
Kavala, born in Paris and educated in the UK, managed a cultural center before gaining prominence. Erdogan has previously accused Kavala of being an agent of the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros.
Turkey has not complied with the two previous ECHR rulings on Kavala's case, and it remains uncertain whether Ankara will implement the court's third binding ruling. This case continues to be one of the most significant recent points of contention between Ankara and Strasbourg.
The Council of Europe oversees how its 46 member states implement ECHR rulings. It possesses the authority to freeze a country's membership or suspend its voting rights if it is found to have seriously violated the rule of law. Despite Turkey's failure to comply with several key ECHR decisions, it remains a founding member, engages with the system, and has not severed ties. A meeting of the Committee of Ministers in mid-September is expected to prioritize the Kavala case, though it remains to be seen whether harsh punitive measures will be debated.