ECtHR on the Kavala case: Clear reprimand for Turkey

Is the detention of the Turkish publisher and human rights activist Kavala politically motivated? The European Court of Human Rights already confirmed this in 2019 and is now clearly reprimanding Turkey.

It’s an unusual move: for the Strasbourg court to specifically censure a country in a judge’s ruling for not caring about a previous court ruling and simply not following it. This is what happened now in the case of Osman Kavala.

Release actually already decided in 2019

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has condemned Turkey for continuing to imprison well-known businessman and human rights activist Osman Kavala, despite a Strasbourg court ruling in 2019 that he must be released.

Kavala was arrested in Turkey in 2017. First, he was accused of being partly responsible for the Gezi Park protests of 2013. Then it was said that he had participated in the attempted coup of 2016. In 2020, a Turkish court acquitted him. But he was immediately arrested again. The accusation this time: espionage.

Not like that!

That doesn’t work, say the judges in Strasbourg: There are no new facts. They would have checked all that long ago. Kavala has behaved lawfully over the years. Although a Turkish court had also acquitted him, he was still imprisoned.

That is why the Council of Europe must now increase the pressure on Turkey and expressly point out that the country continues to violate the European Convention on Human Rights.