Erdogan orders 10 foreign ambassadors to declare a person not welcome

Turkey He will declare ten ambassadors, seven of them Europeans, who last Monday signed a joint manifesto calling for the release of Osman Kavala, a businessman and human rights activist who has been in pretrial detention for 4 years.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in mid-afternoon on Saturday that he had ordered the Foreign Ministry to take measures to declare the ten signatories “unwanted persons.”

“I have given the necessary instructions to our Foreign Minister; I have told him to resolve as soon as possible to declare these ten ambassadors unwelcome people, ”Erdogan said during a speech in the city of Eskisehir.

Last Monday, the ambassadors of Germany, Denmark, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Canada and the United States issued a joint statement on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the imprisonment of Osman Kavala, a Turkish businessman and activist from human rights.

4 YEARS IN JAIL

Kavala was arrested in October 2017, accused of being the “instigator and leader” of the massive 2013 popular protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, an environmental demonstration that quickly morphed into a secular denunciation of the growing authoritarianism of the Turkish Islamist government.

After being acquitted, Kavala was accused of espionage and links to the failed coup in 2016, attributed to the Islamist brotherhood of Fethullah Gülen, while the first case, after the acquittal was annulled, was merged with that of a group of active soccer fans in Gezi.

“The continuous delays in the trial, including the merger of different cases and the creation of others after an acquittal, cast a shadow on the respect for democracy, the rule of law and the transparency of the Turkish judicial system,” read the brief statement of the ten ambassadors.

The signatories “believe that a fair and swift resolution of this case should be in accordance with Turkey’s international obligations and its national laws,” the text added, calling for “the urgent release” of Kavala, in accordance with the rulings of the European Court of Justice. Human rights.

“LACK OF EDUCATION”

The following day, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the ten ambassadors to reproach them for the initiative, which it called “contrary to diplomatic practices”, assuring that it tries to “politicize” a judicial process.

“Ten ambassadors go to the Foreign Ministry (for Kavala). What a lack of education! Here we are in noble Turkey, and nobody can give instructions ”, criticized Erdogan today the statement of the legates.

“They will find out what Turkey is, they will know it, they will understand it. Those who do not know or understand Turkey will leave ”, added the president.

As early as Thursday, Erdogan had harshly criticized the ambassadors’ statement, pointing out that Turkey “cannot afford to entertain” diplomats who take such initiatives.

He then insisted on the “independence” of the Turkish judiciary, although he himself had criticized the acquittal of Kavala, in February last year, as a “judicial maneuver”.

LINKS WITH SOROS

Erdogan has repeatedly insisted on the link between the American billionaire George Soros and Osman Kavala, until 2018 a member of the Open Society foundation in Turkey, an entity financed by Soros.

On Thursday, the president called Kavala “a Soros trash” and compared his imprisonment to that of “thieves, murderers and terrorists.”

Yesterday, an Open Society statement called these statements by Erdogan an “attack on Turkey’s supposedly independent system” and stressed that until its closure in 2018, the foundation had legally operated in Turkey to facilitate the country’s access to the EU, with audits regular from the Turkish authorities.

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