A Turkish court jailed an Istanbul academic following raids on professors and activists deemed to have links to a prominent financier of civil society activities who has been imprisoned for the past year. A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey began on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban..
A Turkish court jailed an Istanbul academic following raids on professors and activists deemed to have links to a prominent financier of civil society activities who has been imprisoned for the past year.
Background
A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey began on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park. The protests were sparked by outrage at the violent eviction of a sit-in at the park protesting the plan, but supporting protests and strikes took place across Turkey, protesting a wide range of concerns at the core of which were issues of freedom of the press, of expression, assembly, and the government’s encroachment on Turkey’s secularism. The Gezi Park protests, as sit-in is now known, was cleared by riot police, causing a violent escalation. Police suppressed the protests with tear gas and water cannons. In addition to the 11 deaths and over 8,000 injuries, more than 3,000 arrests were made. Excessive use of force by police and the overall absence of government dialogue with the protesters was heavily criticised.
Since an attempted coup in 2016, Turkey’s government has been accused of stifling freedom of expression by arresting thousands of people, purging many more people from state institutions and jailing dozens of journalists.
Eleven prominent activists, including Amnesty International’s former Turkey chairman, were arrested last year at their hotel on an island off of Istanbul while training.
More than 15,000 people have been purged from the military since the coup. On 16 November, police detained 86 people, most of them former Air Force personnel, in operations across Turkey.
On 13 November, Turkish police detained 13 academics, activists and journalists over links to a jailed businessman and human rights defender, and allegations that they sought to topple the government by supporting mass protests during 2013. They were questioned over their links to the Anatolia Culture Association founded by Osman Kavala, a philanthropist businessman who was arrested a year ago and accused of attempts to “abolish” the constitutional order and the government. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Kavala “Turkey’s Soros,” a reference to American billionaire George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations have funded education, health, justice and media projects around the world. Pro-government media in Turkey accuse Kavala of engaging in anti-government conspiracies. Anadolu Agency, of which Kavala is the chairman, said police are searching for seven other people linked to the association. Kavala says it aims to promote peace and minority rights through culture. The detentions drew criticism from the European Union, which called the development “alarming,” and from human rights groups.
Analysis
A court in Turkey has jailed an Istanbul academic pending trial following raids on professors and activists deemed to have links to Osman Kavala, an imprisoned prominent financier of civil society activities. Kavala is the chairman of the Anadolu Kultur (Anatolian Culture) foundation, which aims to overcome differences within Turkish society through culture and arts and has sought to reach out to neighbouring Armenia.
All suspects, including those released, remain accused of “creating chaos and mayhem” and “seeking to overthrow the government” in 2013 anti-government protests triggered by the planned development of Istanbul’s central Gezi Park.
Kavala worked closely with foreign missions on civil society projects and his jailing has alarmed Turkey’s Western allies. The United States and the European Union had expressed concern over 13 November’s detentions. Turkish prosecutors had issued arrest warrants for 20 people, with 14 suspects rounded up in the raids. Twelve of the suspects were released after giving testimony to police, while one was still being questioned. However, Yigit Aksakoglu, a staff member of Istanbul’s private Bilgi University who specialises in education research, was remanded in custody before trial.
Amnesty International’s Turkey Strategy and Research Manager Andrew Gardner said: “This latest wave of detentions of academics and activists, on the basis of absurd allegations, shows that the authorities are intent on continuing their brutal crackdown of independent civil society.”
Assessment
Our assessment is that the repeated detentions of critical voices and the continued widespread pressure on civil society representatives contradicts the Turkish government’s ostensible commitment to human rights and to fundamental freedoms. Writing in The Post early in November, Mr. Erdogan declared that Turkey had “moved heaven and earth” to reveal facts in the Khashoggi case. We believe that failure to ensure justice for dissidents in his own country will make Erdogan’s moral stand look increasingly like geopolitical strategy, and will do considerable harm to the modicum of credibility he has gained for himself.
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