Osman Kavala is a philanthropist and outspoken advocate of democracy in Turkey who has been detained by the Turkish government for nearly four years despite never being convicted of a crime. The U.S. State Department has called for his immediate release. Mr. Kavala responded to my questions from a maximum-security prison outside Istanbul, via his attorney. His most recent hearing is scheduled to start on Jan. 17, 2022 in the High Criminal Court. If convicted, he could face a life sentence.
Harvard Political Review: Could you describe your professional and political activities leading up to your initial arrest in 2017?
Osman Kavala: After the sudden death of my father in 1982, I quit my graduate studies at The New School for Social Research in New York, returned to Turkey, and took over the management of the family business. During Turkey’s transition from military dictatorship to a civil administration, I supported publications that I thought contributed to a culture of democracy. In the early 2000s, I realized that I preferred to be more directly engaged in philanthropy, human rights, and social justice.
It was a time when I felt quite optimistic about the future of my country. Turkey had overcome the violent clashes between leftists and the ultra-nationalist groups in the 1970s, the social upheaval following the 1980 military coup, and the armed conflict with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in the 1990s. Turkey began negotiating entry to the EU and political rights and freedoms, especially for minorities, improved.
However, in the 2010s politics in Turkey took a different course. Together with like-minded activists and academics, I made various public statements to express my support for democracy and freedom of speech, which started to disturb certain circles. About a year before my arrest, pro-government newspapers published columns targeting me personally and shortly before my arrest, a website which claimed to be exposing those who had damaged Turkey’s image published several articles suggesting that I was engaged in illegal activities against the state.
In October 2017, I was attending a meeting to initiate a cultural program in the south-eastern city of Gaziantep and when I returned to Istanbul I was detained by the police before getting off the plane. I was held in a small detention cell for two weeks together with two to four fellow detainees, before being interrogated by the police for ten hours and brought before a judge at 3.15 a.m. At the request of the prosecutor, the judge issued an arrest warrant and ordered me to be transferred to the Silivri High Security Prison to await trial. I have never met the prosecutor who managed to draft two lengthy indictments during my arrest without ever questioning me. Instead, he used unrelated telephone conversations which were unlawfully obtained during the Gezi events four years ago. He was later promoted to deputy minister of justice.
HPR: You have spent nearly four years in prison despite never being convicted of a crime. The combined charges currently being heard in Turkey’s High Criminal Court could result in a life sentence against you. Could you take us through the charges that state prosecutors have brought against you?
OK: In November 2017, I was arrested on two charges. The government alleged that I planned, staged, and financed the Gezi protests with George Soros with the objective of overthrowing the government. Although I was openly sympathetic to the young activists who gathered in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013 to oppose a government building project, I had nothing to do with organizing the protest and did not provide any financial support. The protest eventually led to three million people taking to the streets over three months to voice their opposition to President Erdoğan. State prosecutors also allege that I helped to organize the 2016 coup attempt and worked to set up a post-coup government with American academic Henri Barkey.
HPR: When did you become aware you would not be receiving a fair trial before the law?
OK: It was clear from the very beginning that the judicial process had been politicized and had no aim whatsoever to reveal the truth, the crime, or the criminal. The day after my detention, President Erdoğan made a statement saying that I was the secret operative behind the Gezi Park protests. Contrary to the usual procedures, the prosecutor did not question me when accusing me of having committed two of the most serious crimes in Turkish criminal law – “attempting to overthrow the government” and “abolishing the constitutional order by force and violence.”
HPR: How have the charges against you served the government?
OK: The government has created the accusations against me as part of its narrative that foreign individuals want to bring down the State. At first, the government claimed the CIA had supported the coup attempt. The government’s view was later expanded to suggest the Gezi protests were a foreign conspiracy to create chaos in preparation for the coup attempt.
I believe the narrative linking the Gezi protests to George Soros proved to be most useful to the government. Given existing accusations in right-wing groups that Soros provoked and supported uprisings against governments in various countries, the government probably thought that in the absence of any other evidence, a scenario in which Soros is the leading actor would serve to convince wider segments of the population and would not create tension with the Trump administration. Although I did not provide any financial support for the Gezi protestors, I was openly sympathetic to the young activists and I was a suitable candidate to link them to Soros because I was affiliated with the Open Society Foundation – an organization founded by George Soros which has also stated publicly that the protestors were justified. My continued imprisonment seems to be useful in providing support for this narrative and my release harmful to it.
HPR: In December 2019, the European Court of Human Rights found that there was no evidence to support the case against you and stated that you should be released from prison immediately. Despite the ECHR’s decision, you have not been released by Turkey’s courts. Does this mean that Turkey’s courts are now a mouthpiece for the government?
OK: There is no doubt that the courts’ disregard for the ECHR ruling reflects the preferences of the ruling party. The ECHR found that my detention violated Article 18 of the European Convention. It was the second time in half a century that the Court based its decision on Article 18, which is intended to stop governments imposing political pressure on the judiciary. The first was in the case of Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, who has been imprisoned by the Turkish government and whose political party was subsequently listed as a terrorist organization by the government.
The ECHR needs clear evidence of direct political interference to find a violation of Article 18. Of course, that type of evidence is normally not easy to find. However, in my case it was impossible not to see the political intervention because President Erdoğan made statements accusing me on four occasions, all of them at critical stages of my trial.
HPR: How far is President Erdoğan to becoming an authoritarian leader?
OK: President Erdoğan has many of the characteristics of an authoritarian leader. He says that he is committed to democracy and the rule of law while he accuses his opponents of terrorism and pursuing the policies of foreign powers. The alliance he has formed with the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) to maintain the majority in the Parliament makes things worse. The leader of the MHP has opted for radical discourse, claiming that protecting against so-called enemies of the state is more important than individual rights and freedoms. He often accuses the opposition parties of treason and terrorism, and he has further claimed that the Constitutional Court, so important for the rule of law, has been actively trying to undermine these principles.
HPR: We aren’t seeing protests against the government on the streets of Turkey. Do you think that Turkish citizens who are aware of the rise of authoritarianism in their country are afraid to speak out against it or are indifferent to it?
OK: Certain protest movements do continue; especially feminist groups and students keep speaking out. There are ongoing protests against mining and power plant projects that harm the environment, but the breadth of participation in the protests does not reach mass levels. As you stated, people fear and hesitate to participate in protests because the judiciary, which only about one third of the population trusts, is not operating in conformity with the norms of justice and is used politically. Many of the supporters of the governing party believe that whomever the government targets is guilty. The mainstream media has lost their independence, which makes it very difficult to criticize the government.
HPR: What would you like to see democratic nations do to help all those falsely incarcerated in Turkey and to try to turn the tide on autocratic rule in Turkey?
OK: As a general assessment, democratic nations should continue to keep human rights and the rule of law on the agenda. The ECHR functions to determine and deter human rights violations. There is also the United Nations Human Rights Committee, but the ECHR is more effective since its decisions are theoretically binding on Turkey. There should be faster decision making and more effective mechanisms for the implementation of its decisions. Western democracies and the European Union can take steps to increase the effectiveness of the ECHR, the UN Human Rights Committee, and other human rights organizations. Harmonizing governments’ policies with the activities of these organizations could contribute to a coherent international environment with a high level of awareness about human rights.
However, there are several complicating factors which mean that human rights are generally overshadowed by strategic geopolitical interests. The escalation of international conflicts and populist politics precludes effective intervention on human rights questions. The foreign enemy discourse, which has been used frequently in Turkey, especially after the attempted coup of July 2016, has been used to discredit criticisms coming from western countries. Another factor which complicates the situation is that renowned activists and journalists are not the only ones being persecuted in Turkey. Thousands of public employees have been dismissed without a court order for allegedly having ties with terrorist organizations. They have been deprived of their rights and been unable to find jobs even in the private sector.
HPR: Could you describe the personal toll that incarceration, particularly false incarceration, has taken on you?
OK: It is a significant loss to spend these years of my life, which are all the more valuable after the age of 60, in a prison, away from my wife and my loved ones. When you are subjected to such treatment, your ability to feel satisfaction about the activities you have been carrying out for many years thinking that they could contribute to human rights and democracy is also damaged.
Image Credit: Photo by Kerem Uzel/NARPHOTOS is licensed for use under CC BY 2.0.
Correction: Dec. 18, 2021
An earlier version of this article was taken down in order to fully verify that Osman Kavala provided express consent for their publication. Those conditions being met, the article has been republished, and the current version also includes additional context about recent developments regarding Kavala’s case.
