ISTANBUL, Turkey — A
Turkish court
on Monday extended the detention of a civil society leader, ignoring a deadline
from
Europe's top human rights body to release him, in a case that has hurt
Ankara's ties with the West.
اضافة اعلان
The 64-year-old businessman and
philanthropist, Osman Kavala, has been held without a conviction since October
2017 for allegedly financing a wave of 2013 anti-government protests and
playing a role in an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in
2016.
But an Istanbul court on Monday turned down
a motion from Kavala's defense for him to be released. And the court set a new
hearing for February 21.
The case is souring Turkey's ties with its
traditional Western allies.
An appeal from 10 Western countries last
October — including the US and major European powers — for Turkey to release
Kavala triggered a diplomatic standoff that nearly saw Ankara expel their
ambassadors.
The
Council of Europe human rights body then
gave Turkey until Wednesday to either free Kavala or "submit in concise
form" its justification for keeping him detained.
In the latest stage of the marathon trial in
Istanbul on Monday, an AFP reporter in court saw diplomats representing the
European Union and nine Western countries in attendance.
Ankara's failure to provide a legal
justification by the Wednesday deadline could see the Council send the case
back for further action to the
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) at its
next hearing on February 2.
"Look, we all face a big test
here," defense lawyer Koksal Bayraktar told the presiding judge after
reading out the original 2019 ECHR ruling ordering Kavala's release.
"Put an end to this lawlessness and let
our client free," he pleaded.
Human rights setback
The original ECHR ruled that Kavala's
detention was meant "to silence him as a human rights defender" and
ordered his immediate release.
That call has since been repeated numerous
times by both the Council of Europe as well as Western governments.
The Council's infringement procedures
against Turkey could last months and possibly years.
But they could ultimately see Turkey lose
its voting rights or even get kicked out of the pan-European rights body it
first joined in 1950.
Turkey's foreign ministry said it views the
Council's actions — only launched once before against any of its 47 member
states — as "interference" in an ongoing court case.
But government critics say Turkey's standoff
with the body underscores the profound erosion of human rights under Erdogan's
two-decade rule.
Human Rights Watch last week warned that
Erdogan "has set back Turkey's human rights record by decades" by
undermining judicial independence and targeting his critics.
It also pointed to Turkey's withdrawal last
year from a convention protecting women against domestic violence and Erdogan's
"rollback" of LGBTQ rights.
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