Completed by the rapprochement with the Western powers on the occasion of the war against Ukraine, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feels free to pursue a policy of criminalization of any challenge and all -out repression in his country. Thus the philanthrope Osman Kavala was sentenced to incompressible life, at the end of a trial where the law was blurred as well on the form as on the bottom of the very confession of one of the three judges of the court Criminal opposite to this verdict and claimed the acquittal and the release of the accused.
held since 1 er November 2017, Osman Kavala is accused of attempted “government reversal” by programming, leading and funding the events of Gezi, named after this popular uprising caused by the Project for redeveloping the park of the same name, at the Center of Istanbul in May-June 2013. Seven other defendants, including three women, are sentenced to imprisonment for eighteen years to “have helped” Osman Kavala. Lawyer, urban planner, architects, filmmakers, university leaders and NGOs, they appeared free. They were incarcerated the same evening of the verdict.
Now, in February 2020, another criminal court had acquitted all the defendants of this same trial by stressing that no concrete evidence accompanied the thick indictment of the prosecutor to justify his accusations. But a few hours before his release at the end of the acquittal decision, Osman Kavala was arrested on the orders of the Istanbul prosecutor with two new accusations scaffolded on occasion: espionage and participation in the attempted coup de levre July 2015. The Turkish President intervened to challenge the acquittal decision, as he had previously intervened several times publicly against Osman Kavala, while his trial was in progress.
Today, what is only a justice masquerade takes a tragic turn with the perpetuity condemnation of Osman Kavala for the charges of which he had been acquitted, like all other defendants, two years ago. This time he is acquitted accusations of espionage invented by this prosecutor, promoted since member of the Constitutional Court. Kafka himself would have struggled to imagine such a trial.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Turkey for the abusive detention of Osman Kavala and she decreed the nullity of the evidence brought against him. In the name of the independence of the Turkish courts and their sovereignty (!), Recep Tayyip Erdogan had invited the judges not to follow the end of the ECHR. For its part, the Council of Europe began a sanction procedure against Turkey for non-compliance with the ECHR decision, but the procedure is very long.
You have 54.67% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.