Jailed businessman and rights activist Osman Kavala has said that the recent arrest of a celebrity manager over her alleged involvement in the anti-government Gezi Park protests of 2013 is an attempt at “manipulating public perception” and part of efforts to criminalize the protests.
The Gezi Park protests, which began over an urban development plan in central İstanbul in the summer of 2013 and spread to other cities in Turkey, posed a serious challenge to the rule of then-prime minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They were violently suppressed by the government of Erdoğan, who later labelled the protests as a “coup attempt” against him.
The protests have once again returned to Turkey’s agenda 12 years later with the arrest of Ayşe Barım, a prominent figure in Turkey’s television and film industry who works with many famous actors, due to her alleged role in the protests.
Barım is accused of “attempting to overthrow the Turkish Republic or prevent it from fulfilling its duties” as one of the alleged “organizers” of the protests. She denies the charges.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, leading the investigation, claims that Barım had “intensive communications” with defendants in the Gezi Park trial during the protests, including Kavala, who is serving a life sentence due to his alleged role in the protests.
Kavala said in a written statement released on his website through his lawyers on Friday that it is “impossible” for the judicial authorities not to recognize that his phone conversations with Barım, based on the prosecutor’s call records, began only after the Gezi protests had ended. He added that the prosecutor is well aware that no such conversation, as claimed, ever took place.
“What has been done to Ayşe Barım is a striking example of distorting reality and manipulating perception regarding the Gezi trial,” Kavala said, adding that Barım’s arrest is part of ongoing efforts to criminalize the protests.
Meanwhile, Barım’s sister, an attorney, and a friend were also detained on Thursday on charges of “evidence tampering” in connection with Barım’s case, according to Turkish media.
The detentions took place after Barım’s sister, I.S.G., and her friend visited a bank on the night of Barım’s arrest, taking a bag and an envelope containing gold to avoid financial losses if a trustee was appointed to ID Communications, the company co-owned by Barım. Reports also said that Barım transferred ownership of her company to her sister before her arrest.
Kavala, who has been imprisoned since November 2017 on charges related to the Gezi Park protests, was sentenced to life in prison in 2022 for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government of then-prime minister Erdoğan. His conviction, seen by some as politically motivated, was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals in September 2023.
Turkey has refused to release Kavala despite a 2019 European Court of Human Rights ruling that found his detention was in pursuance of an “ulterior motive,” that of silencing him as a human rights defender.
The non-implementation of the rulings prompted the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Committee of Ministers to launch an infringement procedure against Turkey in February 2022 that is still ongoing.