Another Kavala Ruling: Getting Stuck in a Stream While Aiming to Cross the Sea

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has again found Türkiye in the wrong in Osman Kavala’s second application alleging violations of his rights. In its ruling announced at the hearing on 25 August, the Court found that Türkiye had violated six articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), to which it is a signatory.

“Human rights were violated”

The ECtHR had previously called for the “immediate” release of Kavala, who was convicted in the Gezi trial, after finding in 2019 that his situation violated Article 5 of the ECHR on the “right to liberty and security” and Article 18 on the “limitation on use of restrictions on rights.” However, the proceedings continued with Kavala remaining in detention, and his aggravated life sentence was upheld in 2023 by a court that had characterised the Gezi protests as an attempt to overthrow the government.

This time, in addition to Articles 5 and 18, the ECtHR based its ruling on Article 3, concerning the “prohibition of torture”; Article 6, on the “right to a fair trial”; Article 10, on “freedom of expression”; and Article 11, on the right to “freedom of assembly and association.” The ruling said that Turkish courts had “in bad faith deprived Kavala of his liberty.” At the end of the two-and-a-half-hour hearing, the Court ruled by 15 votes to two that the Gezi Park protests had been peaceful and that freedom of expression and the freedoms of assembly and demonstration had therefore been violated.

“Kavala should be released”

Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament’s Türkiye rapporteur, who came to Silivri Prison in Istanbul on 25 August to observe Ekrem İmamoğlu’s hearing, said that the ECtHR ruling was a blow to the credibility of the judiciary in Türkiye and that Kavala should be released immediately.

There is no sign that the judiciary will release Kavala in compliance with the ECtHR ruling; its implementation would come as a major surprise.

President Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement that full membership of the European Union is no longer a policy priority for Türkiye points in the same direction. The EU’s loss of its ability to impose political sanctions—partly because it has placed unfair obstacles in Türkiye’s path—has also played a role in this.

Contradicts the “Terror-Free Türkiye” project

Meanwhile, the Erdoğan administration has embarked on what is one of the most comprehensive political projects in the history of the Republic: the “Terror-Free Türkiye” initiative, aimed at removing the PKK as an armed threat and seeking a political solution to the Kurdish issue under the roof of parliament. The project also requires comprehensive legal reforms, and the TBMM report envisages that it should include dimensions of the rule of law and democratisation.

On the one hand, there is talk of granting PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan the “right to hope,” which also has a basis in the ECHR; on the other, the failure to implement ECtHR rulings concerning political prisoners such as Osman Kavala and Selahattin Demirtaş represents a serious contradiction.