As Turkish businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala watched protests against the planned redevelopment of small Gezi Park in central Istanbul from his nearby office in 2013, he couldn’t have imagined that in a few years he would be accused of masterminding them as part of a plot to overthrow the government.
The spontaneous, leaderless protests against the park’s demolition became a focal point for other citizens’ dissatisfaction with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spreading to other cities. Millions participated before the protests were violently disbanded. At least a dozen demonstrators were killed and more than 8,000 injured.
Three years later, after putting down an attempted military coup d’état in 2016, Erdoğan began a massive crackdown, detaining 160,000 and installing loyalists in much of the judiciary.
Kavala was arrested and charged in 2017 for both the Gezi Park protests and the coup attempt. The Gezi case – laid out in a 657-page indictment – has been described as “outlandish,” “crackpot,” “Kafkaesque,” “deliberately opaque, convoluted, and at times incomprehensible.” Kavala was convicted in both the Gezi case and the coup attempt and sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2022.
Four people convicted alongside Kavala – Çiğdem Mater Utku, Şerafettin Can Atalay, Mine Özerden, and Tayfun Kahraman are serving 18-year prison sentences for allegedly helping Kavala “lead” the Gezi Park protests. Three others whose sentences were quashed are being retried.
Yet neither Kavala nor any other Turkish citizen is included in the State Department’s political prisoner initiative, #WithoutJustCause, even though Turkey shares a “not free” rating from Freedom House. Activists, journalists, opposition politicians, and religious figures from countries like China, Russia, and Iran make up the list.
Kavala’s absence is almost certainly due to U.S. deference to Turkey, a fellow member of NATO. But it is precisely because of Turkey’s strategic importance to the alliance that Washington needs to intensify efforts to free Kavala and confront official conspiracy theories, fueled by antisemitic and anti-American tropes, that led to his imprisonment.
Kavala’s main focus has been civil society. In particular, he supports artistic and cultural initiatives to strengthen Turkish society through the organization he chairs, Anadolu Kültür (Anatolian Culture). Projects including art exhibits, film festivals, and workshops have advanced bonds between the Turkish majority and persecuted minorities, implicitly challenging the ethno-religious nationalism that Erdoğan stokes.
In an interview from prison last year, Kavala recalled thinking that the park’s redevelopment was a “terrible idea.” He was impressed by the demonstrators’ “determination to protect the park, their strong sense of justice, and the spirit of solidarity among them.” As for accusations he led and financed the protests, “I brought a loudspeaker and a plastic table to the park. These, in addition to some cookies, constitute the evidence, the only evidence, provided in the indictment in support of the allegation that I had funded the protests.”
Looking for scapegoats, Erdoğan latched on to Kavala. He singled out Kavala as “the person who financed terrorists” at Gezi Park and a “local collaborator” of the American philanthropist, George Soros – the reflexive target of antisemitic conspiracy theories around the world. Erdoğan calls Kavala “Soros scum” and Soros as “the famous Hungarian Jew … a man who assigns people to divide nations and shatter them.” Soros’ Open Society Foundation answered smears against it by noting that it supported Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union and that its work was audited and approved by the Turkish government. It ended its work in Turkey in 2018.
Henri J. Barkey, Cohen Professor of International Relations emeritus at Lehigh University, has a better understanding of Erdoğan’s tactics than most. But it’s not the result of his scholarship or work in a policy office at the State Department. Turkish prosecutors accused him of conspiring with Kavala to overthrow Turkey’s constitutional order. After a lengthy “investigation,” the charge was formally issued to rearrest Kavala when he was briefly acquitted of the Gezi charges in 2020.
Writing in The Atlantic, Barkey described how the authorities knitted together “boring” and “banal” details of a visit he made to Istanbul to convene a conference around the time of the 2016 coup. Put forward as “evidence” of his conspiracy with Kavala were hotel reservations, or the lack of them; phone calls not to each other; and travel itineraries to different destinations, as well a chance encounter with Kavala at a restaurant.
Unable to prove their allegations, prosecutors argued that the lack of evidence itself supported their accusation that Barkey is a CIA agent, adept at using sophisticated intelligence methods to elude detection.
“It may help to understand that in Turkey, everything can be explained by conspiracy, specifically a conspiracy to prevent Turkey from becoming a world power,” Barkey wrote.
The United States is the paramount villain in Erdoğan’s worldview, Barkey told me. “He incessantly blames the U.S. for the poor performance of the Turkish economy as well as for the country’s other shortcomings. He claims that the U.S. is at war with Turkey. Unfortunately, we never take him on. Even within the U.S. government, officials have acquiesced. They never question what kind of ally he is.”
For Barkey, who lives in the United States, the consequences of Erdoğan’s vendetta are much less severe than for Kavala – at least so far.
Turkey’s transnational repression – a practice in which autocrats target dissidents, activists, and exiles living beyond their borders – has surged since 2016, according to Freedom House. “The regime has pursued its perceived enemies in at least 31 different host countries spread across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia,” Freedom House has reported.
Going after an American academic escalates the campaign even further. A warrant is out for Barkey’s arrest. He cannot visit Turkey, his birthplace, and must weigh the risk of traveling to other countries where Turkey has conducted forced renditions.
Meanwhile, Kavala’s legal case has settled into a stalemate. Kavala’s third request for a new trial was denied in May. Erdoğan has ignored rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, to which Turkey belongs, which rejected the prosecution case against Kavala and found that he should be immediately released. Erdoğan rails against the ruling too.
Most people regard NATO as primarily a security alliance. It doesn’t have an explicit democracy and human rights requirement in its treaty. However, member states are committed to strengthening “their free institutions.” Over time, democratic values have become more important to the alliance: They serve as a benchmark in admitting new members and considered vital to defending the rules-based international order against threats from authoritarian countries like China and Russia.
Turkey’s strategic importance to the United States and the NATO alliance makes addressing Erdoğan’s repression and challenging his anti-American, antisemitic conspiracy theories more urgent, not less.
The United States should include Osman Kavala in its #WithoutJustCause initiative. Erdoğan will be outraged. That won’t be anything new. Standing up to him would be.
