The terrible reign of fiction

Imagine if host Guy A. Lepage were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release because he wore a red square and criticized the government’s position during the maple spring of 2012.

Unthinkable, you say? Transpose this scenario to Turkey.

On Monday, businessman, philanthropist and progressive activist Osman Kavala received the toughest sentence possible in Turkey’s Criminal Code since the country abolished the death penalty. Despite the lack of evidence against him and the dissension of one of the three magistrates who heard the case, the Istanbul court found him guilty of “attempting to overthrow the government” and sentenced him to life imprisonment without remission.

He is accused of having fomented and supported the protests in Gezi Park in 2013. This movement – ​​resembling a maple spring – was trying to abort the construction of a shopping center in the heart of Istanbul. Severely repressed by the authorities, the movement spread across the country and revealed to the world the authoritarian character of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.

At the time, Osman Kavala, known for his fight for human rights and democracy since the 1980s, denounced the government’s repressive methods.

Denying all allegations that he funded the protests, the heir to a large family business said his material involvement was limited to bringing “pastries and masks” to some of the protesters. “The life sentence is an attempted attack on me that cannot be explained on legal grounds,” he told judges on Monday.

Joined in France, where he found refuge, his friend Ahmet Insel simply cannot believe the absurdity of the situation. “When Osman was arrested in 2017, he was accused of organizing the Gezi events. In 2020 he was acquitted of this charge, but on the day of the acquittal he was charged with espionage and returned to prison. On Monday, the court acquitted him of espionage, but condemned him for the crime of which he was acquitted two years ago, ”sums up the professor at Galatasaray University, who has worked with Osman Kavala since the 1970s.

The court also sentenced seven other co-defendants to 18 years in prison. Among them, we find an architect, a documentary filmmaker, university professors. The latter were not behind bars at the time of the sentencing, but were incarcerated immediately after their sentencing. It was in tears and cries of protest that it all happened.

According to all of France, Ahmet Insel, who is also targeted in the case, sees only one explanation. Justice does the dirty work of the Turkish president. “It’s a blow from Erdoğan to say: ‟If you move in Turkey to defend civil society, here’s what I can do”, says the author of several books on Turkish politics.

He recalls that Osman Kavala’s legal troubles began after Erdoğan made a speech in which he accused him of being the representative in Turkey of George Soros, a Hungarian-American billionaire who supports several pro-democracy organizations. George Soros is Vladimir Putin’s pet peeve. Osman Kavala, that of the Turkish president.

Ahmet Insel is far from alone in thinking that the sentences meted out to his friend and his co-defendants ooze political manipulation and abuse of power.

In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to release Mr Kavala, ruling there was no evidence against him and the proceedings were deeply flawed. Turkey did not move.

Last October, a group of Western ambassadors, including those from Canada and the United States, wrote to the Turkish president demanding the immediate release of Mr. Kavala. The Turkish president then declared them “persona non grata” in the country, before softening the tone.

On Monday, a chorus of international voices rose to denounce the convictions. Once again, the Turkish president did not flinch and told all these beautiful people to mind their own business. And this, even if Turkey risks being expelled from the Council of Europe.

As Russia was preparing to be before withdrawing itself from the organization in March.

Beyond the absurdity of the legal process, the story of Osman Kavala should cause concern for another reason. As in Russia, where Vladimir Putin has been writing a science fiction tale for eight years in which he is the liberator of Ukraine led by drug-addicted Nazis in the pay of the West, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also feeds a preposterous story.

According to the Turkish president, his country is the target of attacks by occult forces that want to break its economy and impose their rules. It is in this logic that the trial of Osman Kavala fits. Or the imprisonment of thousands of people, all accused of having played a role in the failed coup in the summer of 2016.

The problem with this kind of political fiction, we learn these days in Ukraine, is that it can go far. Very far.