CHP speaks to Kavala: Targeting by Erdoğan

Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy General Chair and Malatya MP Veli Ağbaba and CHP Ankara MP Şenal Sarıhan spoke to Management Board Chair of Anatolian Culture and businessman Osman Kavala, who is in detention in Silivri Prison.

Following the visit, the parliamentarians conveyed the message received first-hand from Kavala to the public. Kavala, noting that he had been made into a target by the media close to the regime, said the following:

“I am undergoing a massive instance of illegality. My detention is part of the rulership’s assault on those in the opposition. Connecting me or my wife Ayşe Buğra to “FETO” is a situation that exceeds the bounds of rationality, because in the 90’s, when very few people were yet aware of the “FETO” danger, we were aware of this danger and were fighting.”

“I was detained following Erdoğan’s pronouncements”

Kavala, recalling AKP General Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s pronouncement, “Turkey’s Soros” that he made with reference to him, stated, “Just as the human rights advocates who had congregated on Büyükada were targeted by Erdoğan, I, too, was detained following Erdoğan’s comments.”

What did Erdoğan say?

Osman Kavala was arrested at Istanbul Atatürk Airport on 18 October on his return from a meeting in Antep about a project it was planned to accomplish together with the German Goethe Institute.

AKP General Chair Erdoğan said the following, making a veiled allusion to Kavala, in an address he made to his party’s 24 October group meeting:


“You arrest somebody for connections with FETO. They make a stand over his telephone saying he has diplomatic immunity. There can be no such thing. They come at it from this angle thinking they might take us in. Who are you trying to take in with what? The ties between the person who came out of the embassy with the one they call a Civil Society Organisation member, the one they call Turkey’s red Soros, emerge. You look behind the Taksim events and the same person is there. You see them behind the significant fund transfers to certain places.”
 
Kavala was detained on the charges of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” and “attempting to overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey” by the court before which he was brought on the morning of 1 November.

Who is Osman Kavala?

Kavala, who is known for his work in society, was born in Paris in 1957.

Kavala, who having completed Istanbul Robert High School graduated from the Economics department of Manchester University, has been a member of the management boards of various business and social organisations such as the Turkish-Polish Business Council, the Turkish-Greek Business Council and the Center for Democracy in Southeast Europe.

Kavala, who is also on the management board of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, is at the same time a member of the Consultation Board at the Open Society Institute and a member of the Helsinki Citizens Association.