Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala marks 1000th day in jail
Despite the European Court of Human Rights' order for his release, Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala remains imprisoned in Turkey on what supporters call politically motivated charges.
ISTANBUL — One thousand days after his arrest in November 2017, Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala remains behind bars on what human rights advocates protest are baseless and politically motivated charges.
Marking the milestone Monday, Amnesty International and several human rights associations posted with the hashtag #CrimeNotFound, calling for his immediate release over a lack of evidence to justify his ongoing imprisonment.
"We've had 1,000 days stolen from our life,” Kavala’s wife Ayse Bugra said during an online press event Saturday. “My husband's mother is over the age of 90 and she doesn't know whether she will ever see her son again.”
Kavala, the 62-year-old director of the Turkey’s Anadolu Kultur civil society organization, was charged with plotting and supporting the anti-government Gezi protests in 2013. On Dec. 10, 2019, his prolonged pretrial dentation was determined to be a violation of human rights laws by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which called for his immediate release.
