Kavala's life sentence amid Erdogan's 'climate of tension' for the 2023 elections
The philanthropist and activist is to serve a life sentence for "attempting to overthrow" the government with the 2013 Gezi Parki protest. Analyst Gultekin to AsiaNews: there is no "legal logic" in the trials against him. From the president and the ruling party the project of "creating enemies" to maintain power and hide the economic meltdown.
Milan (AsiaNews) - An unfair verdict, a trial conducted without substantial evidence. But behind the life sentence of Osman Kavala there could be something even more disturbing. The creation of a climate of tension to influence the vote of 2023, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will seek his third consecutive re-election as Head of State.
Kavala is one of the country's most prominent intellectuals. A philanthropist and human rights activist, his aggravated life sentence on charges of attempting to overthrow the Erdogan government through the 2013 Gezi Parki uprising raises more than one concern.
"The whole matter presents doubts - Levent Gultekin, journalist and analyst for the newspaper Diken explains to AsiaNews - Osman Kavala is accused in two different trials. From the one for espionage, for which he was detained four years, he was acquitted. Then they added this one of Gezi Parki, where he was first acquitted and then heavily condemned. I don't think it's possible to explain this with legal logic."
Certainly, it is difficult to make him understand to all that part of Turkey that had joined with enthusiasm the Gezi Parki protests, which in 2013 made the Akp and Erdogan, at that time premier, tremble, and that since Sunday, the day of the sentence, is protesting in several Turkish provinces, including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, then the three largest cities in the country.
So much impatience and tension for a sentence that has a political flavor and in which one can almost see a willingness on the part of President Erdogan to be particularly hard on the philanthropist. The case of Kavala has been harshly criticized abroad, because it did not take into account the pronouncements of the European Court of Human Rights. On December 10, the Turkish judiciary rejected the appeal of Kavala's lawyers who asked for his release, despite the fact that the Strasbourg court had decreed the contrary.
But there is another aspect that worries, that is to have wanted to discredit, through the condemnation of Kavala, the whole movement of Gezi Parki. Peaceful and transversal protests, which have never managed to translate into a political movement, also because of the distance of the forces that took part in them but that, evidently, still scares Erdogan.
"As an analyst," Gultekin continues, "I believe that they will try to use this process against Kavala and Gezi for the 2023 elections. They will accuse the opposition parties of an attempt to overthrow the government and will probably use this court case to strengthen their election campaign. Erdogan has said before that Gezi was 'an Alevite initiative'. I believe they will carry on such a narrative so as to create an enemy for the upcoming elections. Authoritarian governments maintain their power through the creation of enemies."
Turkey is going through a difficult economic time and it is precisely economic stability that has always been one of Erdogan's workhorses and one of the main reasons for his consensus. The Turkish lira has been out of control for some time and the macroeconomic fundamentals do not bode well. To this must be added that the war in Ukraine is having a very negative impact.
The 2023 elections are seen by many analysts as a concrete opportunity to try to put the country back on the road to democracy. On the other hand, however, there is a leader who is not willing to give in and who is ready to make every effort to ensure that the part of Turkey that still supports him and that is increasingly radicalized is in the majority. Whatever it takes.
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05/04/2016 14:25
