ANKARA: Turkey has been urged to release human rights defender Osman Kavala following a European court ruling that said his detention was unlawful.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project are among those campaigning for Kavala’s freedom. He has been behind bars for more than 1,000 days.
Rights groups are trying to keep his case on the agenda and prevent the targeting and persecution of activists, dissident politicians and critical journalists from becoming the norm in Turkey.
Kavala has been imprisoned since Nov. 2017 on various allegations and charges. The lawfulness of his detention has been brought to the attention of Turkey’s Constitutional Court.
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers recently ordered Turkey, which has been a founding member of the council since 1950, to ensure Kavala’s immediate release.
The European Court ruled last December that Turkey was persisting in its violations of provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights, especially the rights to liberty, security and a speedy decision on the lawfulness of detention.
The court said that, by detaining Kavala since 2017 and prosecuting him, Turkish authorities had “pursued an ulterior purpose, namely to silence him as a human rights defender.”
In an official visit to Turkey earlier this month, the head of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Robert Spano spoke of the importance of implementing ECHR rulings by local courts in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, but without making any open reference to Kavala’s case.
“Turkish authorities should have complied with the binding ruling of the European Court to free Osman Kavala some time ago,” Amnesty International’s Turkey researcher Andrew Gardner told Arab News. “Obviously, keeping an innocent person in prison on absurd charges for almost 3 years is in itself a very damaging stain on the reputation of Turkish judiciary and with respect to the human rights record in Turkey in general.”
Gardner said the call from the Committee of Ministers to free Kavala had significantly increased the pressure on Turkish authorities. He added that Kavala’s case was far from the only example of authorities imprisoning people in an “attempt to silence them and people they represent.”
“He (Kavala) should never have been detained in first place. Ultimately, all members of the Council of Europe have to abide by the rulings of ECHR. If they don’t, they face serious sanctions.”
Spano has been criticized for not being tougher on Turkey’s human rights record and the rule of law during his meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and top judiciary members in Ankara.
The leader of Turkey’s main opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said on Tuesday that Kavala was behind bars because Erdogan wanted it that way and that his detention period would continue.
“Turkey as a party to the European Convention on Human Rights undertook the obligation to implement all judgments of the European Court of Human Rights,” Massimo Frigo, senior international lawyer at the ICJ, told Arab News. “Not doing so would put the country in breach of its duty of collaboration with the court.”
Turkey must implement several measures to execute the judgment but it must first of all release Kavala and not maintain his detention under charges issued just to delay his freedom, Frigo said.
“The case of Osman Kavala is crucial for the rule of law in Turkey,” he added. “Both a national court and an international court have ordered his release and he is still in jail. Genuine execution of courts’ decisions is an essential tenet of the rule of law.”
