‘Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Should Urge Osman Kavala’s Release’

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Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Commission of Jurists and the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project have released a joint statement about the imprisonment of Osman Kavala.

The statement has noted that the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers should urge arrested rights defender and businessperson Kavala's release, as required by the final verdict of right violation and immediate release of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR):

"The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers should issue a decision at its June 4, 2020 meeting directing Turkey to release human rights defender Osman Kavala and drop all charges against him."

CLICK - ECtHR Ruling on Osman Kavala is Now Final

The three organization have submitted a detailed submission to the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, which oversees the enforcement of the ECtHR judgments. The groups have outlined "how Turkey continues to violate Kavala's rights by flouting a landmark judgment, which became final on May 11, requiring his immediate release."

"The European Court ruled that Osman Kavala's detention is unlawful, and their binding judgment requires Turkey to release him immediately," Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey Director at the HRW has said and added:

"The Committee of Ministers, at its June 4 meeting, should press Turkey to comply and issue a clear message that no Council of Europe member state should be silencing human rights defenders."

'A chilling environment for all rights defenders'

Róisín Pillay, the Director of the Europe and Central Asia Programme of the International Commission of Jurists, has also stated the following:

"The sequence of court orders prolonging his detention and the lack of objective deliberation as to the lawfulness of any deprivation of liberty indicates that decisions have been guided by political considerations and there has been a concerted official effort to prevent Kavala's release."

"Since the European Court's judgment, Turkey has continued to violate Kavala's human rights."

"The campaign of persecution against Osman Kavala and the failure to release him and drop all charges have perpetuated a chilling environment for all human rights defenders in Turkey," Ayşe Bingöl Demir, the Co-Director of Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project, has also noted.

Recommendations to the Committee of Ministers

The three organizations have made detailed recommendations to the Committee of Ministers, urging the committee to:

• Call on the government of Turkey to ensure the immediate release of Osman Kavala as required by the European Court's judgment, stressing that the judgment clearly applies to his ongoing detention and persecution;
• Place the Kavala v. Turkey judgment under "enhanced procedures" and treat it as a leading case under Art. 18 of the European Convention;
• Recognize that Kavala's continuing detention violates Art. 46 of the Convention, concerning the binding nature of final judgments of the European Court, and that a failure to release Kavala may trigger an Art. 46(4) procedure (infringement proceedings);
• Emphasize to the Government of Turkey that Kavala's release is of added urgency in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which increases the risk to his health in detention; and
• Ask the Government of Turkey to drop all charges under which Kavala has been investigated and detained to silence him, in conformity with the Court's findings that his rights have been violated and that his exercise of rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association was wrongfully used as evidence to incriminate him.

(HA/SD)