Turkish businessman Osman Kavala sued

Audio 03:37

By: Juliette Gheerbrant

In Turkey the three magistrates who pronounced on February 18 the acquittal of the businessman Osman Kavala and eight other people. The defendants were accused of having wanted to overthrow the government in 2013. As soon as the acquittal was pronounced, Osman Kavala, an influential figure in Turkish civil society, was again accused, this time in connection with the attempted coup 'State of 2016. Portrait.

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"We will have to work hard to convince more people in Turkish society of what happened to the Armenians in the past, " Osman Kavala declared at the microphone of the NGO Egam in 2014. Building bridges between cultures is one of his great commitments.

The businessman and patron, born in 1957 in Paris, is also a humanist, testifies one of his friends, the French academic Dalita Roger. “ The first thing that comes to mind is his kindness, his sweetness and his modesty. He is someone extremely peaceful and pacifist. He told me one day when we were both intolerant of injustice. There had been great injustices in this country. And his own way of doing something to repair them was to try to bring the peoples, among others, the minorities of Turkey, through culture. "

Osman Kavala develops this sensitivity especially in Manchester, where he studied, continues his friend, at the time when the Irish republican Bobby Sands died of a hunger strike under the Thatcher government. On his return to Turkey, Osman Kavala links with the left movements, while inheriting the large family tobacco business.

An atypical millionaire

“ Once is not custom, he used a good part of his fortune for charitable projects, for humanitarian projects, tells us Didier Billion, deputy director of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) . He is a man who imposed respect through his commitment and who was never attracted to power games. It earned him great respect, great sympathy . ”

Osman Kavala founded a large publishing house, Iletisim , the DEPO cultural center in Istanbul and the Anadolu Kultur foundation in the artistic and cultural field to promote rapprochement between Kurds and Turks. It has also enabled the production of numerous films and documentaries.

Defense of minority cultures

In 2013, he supported the demonstrations in Gezi . At the beginning of 2017, he called for a boycott of the referendum which widens the powers of President Erdogan. Become one of the many pet peeves of power, he did not avoid the arrest in October of the same year. " There were many friends who told him to go abroad, as did other Turkish human rights defenders. He always refused to leave, ”continues Dalita Roger.

Acquitted on February 18, 2020, for lack of evidence that he wanted to overthrow power in 2013, he has no time to leave the prison. He was immediately placed in police custody in connection with the attempted coup in 2016. For Dalita Roger: “ It is probably also his work of memory that he pays, in particular on the Armenian genocide. He also supported the culture, the music of the Kurds. "

An influential figure in civil society Osman Kavala, on the other hand, never envisaged a political career, notes Dalita Roger: “ Kavala never wanted to get involved more in partisan politics; we know where his sympathies are of course, but he never really got involved. This makes current processes against it all the more worrying. "

Equally disturbing is the rhetoric of the government.

And Dalita Roger adds: “ Often Erdogan has compared Mr. Kavala to a Turkish Soros. And there, there are hints of anti-Semitism emerging, which should not be underestimated. I do not at all believe that the Turkish people are anti-Semitic. In his story he proved the opposite ... "

Human rights defenders, but also several European governments have denounced the continued detention of Osman Kavala.

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• Turkey
• European Union
• Justice
• Human rights

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