By Sareen Habeshian
Police in Turkey jailed an academic on November 16, pending trial, following raids on activists and professors linked to Osman Kavala, a prominent philanthropist. Kavala is being accused of overthrowing the government.
Turkish prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 20 people in four cities, and detained 14 suspects in the raids. Twelve of them have since been released under judicial control with a travel ban, after giving testimonies to the police. One person is still in custody as of Monday, according to Al Jazeera.
Among those arrested were Boğaziçi University Professor Betul Tanbay, Istanbul Bilgi University Professor Turgut Tarhanli and members of Anadolu Kultur (Anatolian Culture), a cultural organization that seeks to develop mutual understanding and dialogue within Turkish society.
The Chairman of the Board of Anadolu Kultur, philanthropist and businessman Osman Kavala, was arrested by Turkish authorities in October 2017, and has been held in solitary confinement since, without indictment.
Sevan Deyirmenjian, a philologist and columnist from Istanbul, said in an interview with CivilNet, that it is highly likely that some of the detainees were arrested due to their ties with Kavala and Anadolu Kultur.
“The Anadolu Kultur organization is a cultural organization and has no political leanings,” Deyirmenjian said. “If such peacefully working people in Turkey are being arrested, of course we should all be worried about our own future.”
In response to the arrests, Amnesty International’s Turkey Strategy and Research Manager, Andrew Gardner said, “It is telling that the detentions are part of the investigation into the jailed civil society leader, Osman Kavala, who – more than a year after his detention – is yet to be indicted or have evidence of an internationally recognized crime presented against him.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has detained more than 160,000 people since the failed military coup in 2016, and his administration has banned hundreds of news outlets and civil society groups. Recent attacks on minorities have left religious minorities vulnerable.
“This latest wave of detentions of academics and activists, on the basis of absurd allegations, shows that the authorities are intent on continuing their brutal crackdown of independent civil society, and shatters any illusion that Turkey is normalizing following the lifting of the state of emergency,” Gardner said.
The leader of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, announced on the council’s official Facebook page on November 20 that she raised Kavala’s case to Turkish authorities on several occasions and called for his release.
“I have been following this case very closely as Mr. Kavala is a long-standing partner of my Office, a prominent human rights defender, philanthropist, and a pillar of Turkish civil society,” she said. “His detention has had far-reaching effects on human rights defenders and their work in Turkey.”
Mijatović said that Turkish authorities spoke to her about a normalisation process following the lifting of the state of emergency.
“However, these latest developments cast serious doubts about this process,” she said.
Exercising her power under the European Court of Human rights, Mijatović submitted written observations as a third party in the pending case of Mehmet Osman Kavala v. Turkey.
The U.S. State Department released a statement on the day of the arrests urging Turkey to “respect and ensure freedom of expression.”
“The United States is very concerned about Turkey’s detention today of academics, journalists, and civil society activists with ties to the Anatolia Culture Association,” said U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.
The European Union also called for the immediate release of “all those detained without due process,” in a statement released on November 16.
“Repeated detentions of critical voices and the continued widespread pressure on civil society representatives run counter to the Turkish government’s declared commitment to human rights,” said EU foreign affairs spokesperson Maja Kocijancic.
