Probably to many the name of Osman Kavala will not sound very familiar. A 64-year-old Turkish businessman and philanthropist, Kavala was sentenced to life imprisonment without appeal. The sentence, very heavy, reaches the apex of the judicial attack by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan against a man who embodies the concept of independent civil society.
In the midst of the war in Ukraine, the president of Turkey, a NATO country, does not hesitate to challenge his Western partners who had asked for the release of Kavala.
Seven other defendants in the same trial were sentenced to 18 years in prison each. Among them are an architect, a director, a university student, the founder of an NGO. They too belong to a civil society that Erdoğan wants to wipe out.
Navigating between conflicts and interests
The accusation is even of having wanted to “overthrow the Turkish government” as they inspired, in 2013, a revolt of young people in Istanbul around the Gezi park, all in all quite spontaneous. At the time, Kavala had attempted mediation between the young people and the authorities, an action that has turned into an indictment and has already cost him the last four and a half years spent in prison.
The case of Kavala has become the symbol of an autocratic regime that has emancipated itself from its alliances and commitments. Turkey, an important regional power, has developed an autonomous diplomacy that makes it navigate between conflicts and interests. The downside is that Ankara feels free from any obligation, especially in matters of human rights and respect for the rule of law.
Since 2019, the Turkish government has continued to ignore a decision by the European Court of Human Rights (CEDH), a body of the Council of Europe to which Turkey is a member. The Cedh had established that the detention of Kavala is “an abuse” without any solid basis and aims to produce “a deterrent effect on human rights defenders”.
Failure to comply with a decision by the CEDH could result in sanctions, but the members of the Council of Europe hesitate, worried that Turkey could leave the institution.
The era of pressure from a dominant West on recalcitrant countries is long gone. The world has changed and Erdoğan understood it very well.
But the multipolar balance that is emerging today, in which countries like Turkey have found their place, cannot mean a total absence of rules. Respect for the rule of law is part of the core of the common values of the countries of the Council of Europe. Erdoğan cannot neglect it without paying any consequences.
The Council of Europe, which includes 46 countries, was born on the rubble of World War II and survived the Cold War. Yet today he finds himself threatened by the thrust of authoritarianism. Putin’s Russia has just left the institution after invading Ukraine. Does Erdoğan’s Turkey want to find itself in the same category of pariah countries? The unfair condemnation of Kavala risks accelerating this process.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)