The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Turkey to immediately release Osman Kavala, an activist and philanthropist who has been detained in prison for almost a decade.

Charges and Rulings Against Kavala

Kavala was sentenced to life behind bars in 2022 for charges related to nationwide protests in 2013 and a failed coup attempt three years later; Since his initial arrest and detention in 2017, rights groups and Kavala himself have maintained that the charges against him are politically motivated.

The ECHR on Tuesday ruled that his continued detention was unlawful and that his rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and association had been violated. “The measures taken against the applicant… had been predominantly motivated by an ulterior purpose, namely, to punish him for his role in the Gezi Park demonstrations and for expressing his opinions as a human rights defender, and to silence him,” the court said in its ruling.

Human Rights Concerns

The court also found that Kavala’s aggravated life sentence amounted to “inhuman and degrading treatment.” Rights advocates and opposition groups say President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has increasingly weaponised the judiciary to target critics and rivals. The court said Kavala’s case had exposed a “systemic problem” in Turkey of the “detention and prosecution of political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists,” adding that there were “structural shortcomings which affected the guarantees of independence and impartiality of the judiciary.

Kavala, 68, became a symbol of a government security operation on civil society in Turkey following his arrest in October 2017. The Turkish government has insisted the country’s courts are independent. He and others were accused of orchestrating and financing anti-government protests in 2013, which started in Istanbul’s Gezi park before spreading across Turkey.

Human rights group Amnesty International says prosecutors falsely alleged that the Gezi park protests were an attempt to overthrow the government. In 2019, the ECHR demanded Kavala’s immediate release, describing his detention as arbitrary and politically motivated. Turkey did not implement the ruling. He was initially acquitted in February 2020 but within hours was rearrested on new charges of being part of a failed military coup in 2016.

Legal and Political Implications

His acquittal over the Gezi Park protests was overturned in January 2021, and he was sentenced to life in prison in April 2022 – a conviction now declared “null and void” by the ECHR. Reacting to the latest ECHR ruling, Amnesty International’s Eve Geddie said: “This obstruction of justice must end. Turkey’s authorities, including judicial and prosecutorial, must act to free Osman Kavala immediately and unconditionally.

Kavala was born in Paris and educated in the UK. Before being thrust to prominence, he ran a cultural centre. Erdogan has previously accused Kavala of being an agent of the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros. Turkey has refused to comply with the two previous ECHR rulings on Kavala’s case, and it is not clear whether Ankara will implement the court’s third binding ruling.

The case remains one of the most serious recent flashpoints between Ankara and Strasbourg. The Council of Europe oversees how its 46 member states execute ECHR rulings. It has the power to freeze a country’s membership or suspend its voting rights if it is found to have seriously violated the rule of law. Even though Turkey has failed to comply with several key ECHR decisions, it remains a founding member, engages with the system and has not broken ties.

A meeting of the Committee of Ministers in mid-September is likely to prioritise the Kavala case, but it remains to be seen whether it will debate harsh punitive measures.