Vincent Hervouet
, modified to
1:34 p.m., January 18, 2022
Osman Kavala will remain in prison. Turkish justice has decided to ignore the recommendations of the Council of Europe which demanded his immediate release, under penalty of sanctions.
“Yesterday morning, nine Western ambassadors and two diplomats from the European delegation crowded into the courtroom of the Istanbul court. And so it was together that they suffered the refusal, the contempt, the public spanking that inflicted on them by the magistrates by deciding for the third time in three months to keep Osman Kavala behind bars.
The person concerned expected it so much that he refused to leave his cell. He has been languishing there without judgment for four years. During his four years, he had time to think about it. He said he no longer had faith in Turkish justice, which is like an innocent confession. Hardened criminals or professional politicians know how susceptible magistrates are. To coax them, he repeats that they have confidence in the justice of their country.
Osman Kavala, the supporter of a Turkey in the EU
He is the enemy chosen by President Erdogan, his pet peeve, his scapegoat. He embodies everything the Sultan hates. An heir, born in Paris and raised in the United Kingdom, who represents the symbol of cosmopolitanism. He is a supporter of Turkey tied to Europe, a secularist whose relations with the Islamist movement are uninhibited. He was one of the first to denounce the sect of Fethullah Gülen, at the time when Erdogan agreed like thieves in fun with the preacher to infiltrate the state.
Osman Kavala has put his fortune at the service of all kinds of cultural projects which militate for the rights of minorities, the Kurdish question, reconciliation with the Armenians. Erdogan hates this Robin Hood and compares him, supreme insult, to Georges Soros. He had him imprisoned on the pretext that he had pushed the Gezi demonstrations in 2013. And when this accusation was swept aside, another immediately took over: participation in the 2016 coup d’etat where he is accused of wanted to destabilize the state. He faces life imprisonment. The state is sacred in Turkey. Turkey is the state.
A Turkish economy under oxygen
The Council of Europe, which brings together 47 countries on the continent, well beyond the 27 of the European Union, has given Turkey formal notice to deliver its observations in this case, in other words to explain itself. The ultimatum expires tomorrow. We would be curious to see what there is to say in the Kavala dossier. Without an answer, the Council will be up against the wall and will have to take action. It will only have to impose sanctions.
Turkey has been a member of the Council of Europe for 70 years. She cannot denounce the interference. She has sovereignly agreed to submit to the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. So, obviously, this will give Erdogan the opportunity to victimize himself, to denounce the conspiracy from abroad. It is also paying, but not necessarily this time, given the economic rout suffered by the Turks and the galloping inflation led by an omniscient president. a president who reinvents the laws of the market, burns up currency reserves, leaving the experts absolutely flabbergasted. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been playing the crisis with Europe for fifteen years. The European Union has always folded to avoid it. It is not said that the Council of Europe will do the same. The breaking point, in any case, is very close.”