A Turkish court ruled on Thursday to keep renowned Turkish businessman and rights advocate Osman Kavala in pre-trial detention.
The next hearing on his case is set for Feb. 18. Fifteen other defendants are on trial along with Kavala, who is currently the only one in prison.
The ruling was made although the European Court of Human Rights called in December for Kavala’s release on the grounds that there was a lack of reasonable suspicion that he committed an offense.
Kavala is accused of orchestrating the Gezi Park mass protests in the summer of 2013 in a trial described as absurd by rights groups. The latest hearing of his trial took place at the İstanbul 30th High Criminal Court in the Silivri Prison Complex on Thursday.
Prosecutors claim the Gezi protests were organized from outside the country to “bring Turkey to its knees.”
Kavala has been in jail since November 2017 and has become a symbol of what activists say is the deliberate targeting of civil society.
He was among tens of thousands of people rounded up after an attempted coup in July 2016.
A respected figure in intellectual circles, Kavala is the chairman of the Anatolian Culture Foundation, which seeks to bridge ethnic and regional divides through art, including with neighboring Armenia, with which Turkey has no diplomatic ties.
from Turkey Purge https://turkeypurge.com/turkish-businessman-osman-kavala-to-remain-in-prison-court
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