The Vaclav-Havel Prize of the Council of Europe awarded to the Turk Osman Kavala, opponent of the regime imprisoned since 2017

He is one of Türkiye’s most famous prisoners. On Monday October 9, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize to Osman Kavala, aged 66. Incarcerated since October 2017, this Paris-born patron is accused of having sought to overthrow the Turkish government, then led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, by financing demonstrations hostile to power in 2013. He has always denied the facts which are blamed. The Turkish Court of Cassation confirmed his prison sentence at the end of September “aggravated life sentence”, in solitary confinement and without possibility of remission.

The spokesperson for the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs immediately welcomed in a press release “attribution” from this price to this “figure of Turkish civil society.” “France deplores the confirmation of the life sentence of Mr. Osman Kavala by the Turkish Court of Cassation on September 28. She reiterates her call for the immediate release of Mr. Osman Kavala.”as well as “the dropping of all charges” which weigh against him, added the spokesperson for the Quai d’Orsay.

Council of Europe officials have repeatedly called on Turkey to release Osman Kavala, after a ruling ruling that Ankara had violated the European Convention on Human Rights. Turkey’s refusal to apply this judgment has led to infringement proceedings, which could lead to its expulsion from the Council of Europe.