Still no charges for Turkey's top philanthropist after year behind bars
Turkish philanthropist and businessman Osman Kavala has spent a year behind bars, but the judiciary has yet to explain why he's still in jail.
For those unfamiliar with why Osman Kavala matters for Turkey, a nutshell description would be that he is a civil society leader and philanthropist who stands out as the most prominent link between Turkish civil society and the outside world. The 61-year-old is also a wealthy businessman.
Kavala chairs Anadolu Kultur (Anatolia Culture), an Istanbul-based foundation that, in its own words, aims “to build bridges between different ethnic, religious and regional groups by sharing culture and art.” For more than a year, however, Kavala has been unable to pursue that mission because he has been locked up in a high-security prison in Silivri, near Istanbul.
Kavala was detained Oct. 18, 2017, aboard the plane he took to Istanbul from the southeastern city of Gaziantep, where he had attended a meeting on a planned joint project with Germany's Goethe Institute. Less than a week later, while Kavala was still in police custody, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly accused the activist of criminality and pointed him out as a target of the judiciary. “The connections of the person they call the ‘red Soros of Turkey’ are coming to light,” Erdogan told a parliamentary meeting of his Justice and Development Party. “You see the same person behind the Taksim incidents [the Gezi Park resistance]. You see them behind the transfer of significant funds to certain places.”
After 14 days in police custody, Kavala appeared before a judge Nov. 1, 2017, and the judge ruled to send him to prison pending trial. Ever since, the Kavala case has been shrouded in mystery.
