court
Turkey: Life imprisonment for cultural promoter Kavala
An Istanbul court has sentenced the internationally renowned cultural promoter Osman Kavala to life imprisonment. Photo: Wiktor Dabkowski/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Osman Kavala’s imprisonment for many years brought harsh international criticism to Turkey. Now a court in Istanbul has sentenced the well-known cultural promoter.
At the end of an internationally criticized trial, a Turkish court sentenced the cultural promoter Osman Kavala to life imprisonment.
The court in Istanbul found Kavala guilty of attempted coup in connection with the 2013 Gezi protests. He has been in custody since November 2017. The courtroom reacted immediately to the decision with boos and loud protests. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Sharp international criticism
The case brought sharp international criticism to Turkey. For this reason, the country is threatened with expulsion from the Council of Europe. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had already ordered the release of the human rights activist in 2019 and classified the detention as politically motivated. At the end of 2021, a diplomatic scandal broke out after ten ambassadors in Turkey – including the German one – had written in a letter demanding the release of Kavala. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saw this as inadmissible interference and threatened the diplomats with expulsion.
According to the indictment, the allegations in the proceedings were attempted coup in connection with the Gezi protests of 2013 and “political and military espionage” in connection with the attempted coup of 2016. Kavala was acquitted of the espionage charge. He had always denied all allegations against himself, calling them “conspiracy theories” and seeing himself as a victim of political instrumentalization by the government.
Erdogan interferes
In the past, Erdogan had publicly referred to Kavala as the backer of the Gezi protests and the financier of terrorism. Kavala’s lawyers had criticized the inadmissible interference in ongoing court proceedings. The government defends itself against such allegations by referring to the independence of the Turkish judiciary.