• Turkey: Turkey's 'poor' suicide victims of economic problems
  • Turkey: Turkish feminists accused of "offending the State" for singing 'A rapist on your way'
  • Elections (2013). Gezi joins the Turkish opposition against Erdogan

Total acquittal and immediate release of the only defendant in provisional detention until Tuesday. This has been the historic sentence that the 30th Chamber of the High Criminal Court in Istanbul has given to nine of the defendants for their role in the anti-government protests of the Gezi Park of 2013, for whom the Prosecutor's Office had requested jail sentences and life imprisonment without Probation option. In an unexpected turn, after a last tumultuous hearing, the judge has set aside the Kafka process.

The defendants, among whom were engineers, former teachers, activists and even a philanthropist, were accused, among other crimes of "trying to overthrow the Republic of Turkey." They were considered drivers of a movement similar to the so-called 'color revolutions', that is, of instigating, with foreign funding, acts of protest against the Turkish Government, led then by the Islamist nationalist Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The story, based on the judge's conclusions, is more similar to the apparent reality at the end of May 2013. The police decision to harshly suppress a protest camp in the central park of Gezi, which was trying to avoid cutting down trees To build a shopping center, it attracted more protesters in support of the victims. The charges against these led, in turn, the arrival of more outraged, in what was the biggest challenge of the streets to Erdogan since his arrival in power.

Turkish Justice has been questioned for years. Milena Buyum, responsible for Amnesty International campaigns, had previously denounced that "despite not having presented even the slightest evidence to support his accusation that Osman Kavala, Mücella Yapici and Yigit Aksakoglu were involved in any criminal activity, and less even that they conspired to overthrow the Government, the Prosecutor's Office has asked for life imprisonment. " Six other defendants faced between 15 and 20 years in jail.

Not surprisingly, as the defense lawyers criticized, the trial was plagued by irregularities . Up to three judges have sat in front of the accused. One of the defendants is the philanthropist Osman Kavala, who has been behind bars for two and a half years. A judge who decreed his release was immediately dismissed. Since then, he had refused to comply with a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, of December 2019, ordering his release from prison.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Turkey
  • Recep Tayyip Erdogan

CourtsTwo judicial agreements settle the responsibility of FGV in the accident with 43 dead and the adjustment of security contracts

Middle EastRecep Tayyip Erdogan threatens to extend his military intervention in Syria

Politics The Government dodges the complaint to Nicolás Maduro for the incident with his vice president Delcy Rodríguez in Barajas