{"id":41286,"date":"2019-10-22T01:23:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T01:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41286"},"modified":"2019-10-22T01:23:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T01:23:14","slug":"two-years-on-turkish-dissident-remains-behind-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41286","title":{"rendered":"Two years on, Turkish dissident remains behind bars\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nJEDDAH:\u00a0The situation of many peaceful dissidents who are still in jail in Turkey, like Osman Kavala, who recently completed his second year in pretrial detention, is still criticized by Western countries and human rights defenders.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe solitary confinement of Turkish philanthropist, activist and businessman Kavala is described by many as a \u201cKafkaesque\u201d experience, as charges brought in the indictment against him are still without concrete evidence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nKavala, who was put behind bars over his alleged involvement in Gezi Park protests in summer 2013 to \u201coverthrow the government\u201d by funding and organizing the whole process, had his third hearing on October 8, but the court ruled that he should remain in custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is not Kavala who has lost his freedom and independence, it is the Turkish judicial system,\u201d his lawyers said in a statement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nIn the indictment, Kavala is accused of providing milk, fruit juice and pastries as well as gas masks to protesters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe fact that he was on the board of the Turkish branch of George Soros\u2019 Open Society Foundation at that time was also a source of suspicion. But he denied that the charity had ever provided financial support for the protests.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe next hearing for the case is set for December 24-25.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nSome of his friends shared with Arab News their thoughts and feelings about the lengthy judicial process\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is hard to put into words how much influence one person can have at changing historical and current perspectives,\u201d Louis Fishman, an assistant professor at City University of New York, told Arab News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cKavala is man who has dedicated his life to creating spaces within the Turkish public sphere, where narratives of Armenians, Kurds, and other silenced groups can find a place. This soft-spoken man has contributed greatly to the development of a civil society in Turkey and even after his imprisonment his work is being carried out through multiple non-profit organizations and art galleries,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nFishman also said that the presence of Kavala was missed, but his legacy continued, and all his friends and supporters were waiting for his release and his return.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAysen Candas, a Turkish political scientist from Yale University, is another friend of Kavala who took part of the international campaign to raise awareness of his incarceration.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOsman Kavala\u2019s unlawful imprisonment, the violation of due process at every step of his detainment, bogus charges against him, the ridiculous nature of what is presented as \u2018evidence,\u2019 namely illegally tapped phone conversations irrelevant to the charges, the fact that the indictment was submitted one year after Osman was imprisoned \u2026 are all plain facts about his case,\u201d she told Arab News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAccording to Candas: \u201cWhat renders Kavala\u2019s imprisonment politically significant is his relentless defense of the rule of law, human rights, minority protections and his advocacy of implementing the standards of constitutional democracies in Turkey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHe was a firm, unyielding proponent of norms of rule of law and democracy and minorities, he lent a legitimacy to the political initiatives he was a part of,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nCandas also noted that: \u201cWhile the activities of Kavala\u2019s cultural association Anadolu Kultur have been highlighted and targeted by the false accusations that are scattered all through the ridiculous indictment against him, his imprisonment is not due to cultural activities but is aiming to attack the political meaning of these cultural activities, such as peaceful coexistence, such as dialogue and public deliberation, such as equal respect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nCandas thinks Kavala\u2019s imprisonment reflects the new hostage-status of constitutional democracy in Turkey; the negation of not just the democratization efforts since the 1980s, but also of the secular republic, of cosmopolitan modernization, of Turkey\u2019s efforts to become an international, law-abiding member of UN and of all international conventions that Turkey is a part of.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cOsman is also a secular businessman, a member of Turkey\u2019s top business association. His family is from the Balkans and they had arrived in mainland Turkey through the population exchange with Greece, so perhaps the secular identity, of those who established the republic in 1923, is being targeted and criminalized in Osman\u2019s person,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JEDDAH:\u00a0The situation of many peaceful dissidents who are still in jail in Turkey, like Osman Kavala, who recently completed his second year in pretrial detention, is still criticized by Western countries and human rights defenders.\u00a0\u00a0 The solitary confinement of Turkish philanthropist, activist and businessman Kavala is described by many as a \u201cKafkaesque\u201d experience, as charges…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}