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ISTANBUL – Osman Kavala, a Turkish philanthropist whose long prison has been criticized by the United States and European countries, was sentenced to life in prison on Monday on charges of trying to overthrow the government in a case rejected by human rights groups as politically motivated.
The allegations stem from prosecutors’ allegations that Kavala staged national anti-government protests in 2013. Human rights groups called it ridiculous, and Kavala denied the allegations. Seven other defendants in the case were sentenced to 18 years in prison each.
Everyone, including Kavala, has the right to appeal the sentences.
The prosecution of Kavala, not well known in Turkey before his arrest in late 2017, has become a source of escalating tensions with Ankara’s Western allies. Ahead of Monday’s sentencing, Turkey faced a possible rare removal from the Council of Europe, a human rights body, for refusing to comply with European Court of Human Rights rulings requiring Kavala, who has been in prison for more than four years. released.
Last year, Turkey threatened to expel 10 foreign ambassadors, including the US ambassador, after their embassies signed a letter calling for Kavala’s release, sparking a brief diplomatic crisis.
Turkey’s Erdogan declares 10 ambassadors persona non grata.
The court’s ruling came as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government sought to repair fences with NATO allies after years of strained relations, including acting as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine and taking modest steps to stem the flow of military equipment to Moscow. The verdict also coincided with a visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Turkey as part of a peacekeeping effort focused on Ukraine.
Kavala’s long legal ordeal symbolizes Erdogan’s relentless crackdown on opposition figures, dissidents and other alleged enemies in the years since the 2016 coup attempt against the government. laid down to keep him locked up, and for Erdogan’s apparent personal antagonism to him.
Human Rights Watch said in a report earlier this year that Turkey was “using domestic court rulings to prolong Kavala’s detention and prolong the life of unfounded prosecutions.” The courts issued false release orders, instituted multiple criminal proceedings against Kavala on the same facts, and divided and consolidated the files accusing him of false crimes.
Expression Interrupted, an organization that monitors freedom of expression in Turkey, published a 7,000-word article in an attempt to decipher the thicket of lawsuits against Kavala, calling it the “Kafkaesque legal spiral.”
Turkish officials have repeatedly called the judiciary independent and denied that court decisions were influenced by politics.
Kavala, 64, founded Anadolu Kultur, an organization that promotes diversity, culture and human rights. He has been in custody since November 2017.
The indictment identifies him as the organizer and financier of national protests against Erdogan’s government in 2013, which are seen as the first real challenge to the Turkish leader’s rule. The demonstrations were sparked by a government plan to destroy green space in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and escalated into a nationwide protest movement against Erdogan’s authoritarian style.
The indictment also accuses Kavala of plotting with George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist, to fuel the protests. Both Kavala and Soros flatly denied the allegations, and Kavala had previously been acquitted by a Turkish court that ordered his release.
Instead, prosecutors made new charges.
The last hearing in the latest case began on Friday and continued on Monday. In front of the full gallery, which includes journalists, Western diplomats and opposition politicians, the defendants and their lawyers were given the opportunity to make final statements. Among those present was Kavala’s wife, Ayşe Bugra, a university professor.
In a lengthy address to the court via video link from prison on Friday, Kavala detailed his long journey through Turkey’s legal system, including arrests, shattered hopes for release, more arrests and what he said were signs all along that politicians have his thumbs on the scales. “The process is being completely distorted under political influence, and my prolonged detention in an act of imprisonment through abuse of power,” he said.
A Turkish activist was acquitted after two years in prison. But the prosecution detained him again.
He added: “An attempt is being made to criminalize the events in Gezi Park and to discredit the will of hundreds of thousands of citizens who took part in the events, using a fictional scenario with George Soros and me. In fact, he added, the protests were “unplanned and unexpected.”
“After losing four and a half years of my life, the only aspect in which I can find solace is the possibility that the process I have gone through will contribute to tackling the crucial problems in Turkey’s judiciary,” he said.
“This is the worst possible outcome,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey’s director of Human Rights Watch, who called it a “false trial from start to finish” in which the alleged evidence in the case – a series of “wild allegations” – never not tested.
“Nobody asks him questions about what he did,” she said, referring to Kavala.
It is also discouraging, she added, that the sentence was handed down when the UN secretary-general was visiting Turkey “without saying anything” about the country’s human rights process or situation.
In the shocked courtroom on Monday, when defendants were arrested and their supporters burst into tears, some in the gallery called out the name of the square where Gezi’s protests began: “Everywhere is Taksim,” they chanted “Everywhere is resistance.”
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