A government-led campaign demonizing American-Hungarian billionaire and philanthropist George Soros has reached such a crescendo in Turkey that the Open Society Foundation has decided to pull out from the country.
Soros who in recent years has been turned into a hated figure in countries such as Macedonia, Poland, Romania and even his native Hungary, is now being used as a tool to intimidate the opposition in Turkey. The most striking reflections of this campaign are the judicial onslaughts targeting Turkish civic society leader Osman Kavala and the Open Society Foundation in Turkey, which Kavala had co-founded.