Turkish businessman Osman Kavala to remain in prison: court
Zaman Australia11 October 20211852 days ago1 min read
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An İstanbul court ruled on Friday to keep Osman Kavala, a renowned businessman and a human rights advocate, in pre-trial detention, the Turkish media reported.
Kavala has been behind bars for 1,438 days. The next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 26.
The ruling was made although the European Court of Human Rights called in December for Kavala’s release on the grounds that there was a lack of reasonable suspicion that he committed an offense.
Kavala is accused of orchestrating the Gezi Park mass protests in the summer of 2013 in a trial described as absurd by rights groups. The latest hearing of his trial took place at the İstanbul 30th High Criminal Court in the Silivri Prison Complex on Thursday.
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Prosecutors claim the Gezi protests were organized from outside the country to “bring Turkey to its knees.”
Kavala has been in jail since November 2017 and has become a symbol of what activists say is the deliberate targeting of civil society.
He was among tens of thousands of people rounded up after an attempted coup in July 2016.
A respected figure in intellectual circles, Kavala is the chairman of the Anatolian Culture Foundation, which seeks to bridge ethnic and regional divides through art, including with neighboring Armenia, with which Turkey has no diplomatic ties.
