Turkey’s Foreign Ministry has summoned the ambassadors from Denmark and nine other countries for talks following a joint statement on the imprisoned Turkish businessman and activist Osman Kavala.
It writes the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, which is considered to be loyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
This comes after ambassadors from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada and New Zealand in a joint statement on Monday called for the release of Osman Kavala.
“All diplomats are obliged to respect the sovereignty of our country and the independence of the Turkish judiciary and to refrain from interfering in our internal affairs,” Ömer Celik, spokesman for Turkey’s ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), wrote on Twitter late Monday night.
The Turkish Minister of Justice, Abdulhamit Gül, has also criticized the joint statement, according to the Daily Sabah.
The raised index finger comes after the ambassadors from the ten countries, including Ambassador Danny Annan from Denmark, earlier Monday called on Turkey to release Osman Kavala.
Kavala was jailed four years ago for his alleged role in anti-government protests at Gezi Park in Istanbul in 2013.
Among other things, the ambassadors write in the statement that the continued delays in Kavala’s trial “cast a shadow over respect for democracy, the rule of law and transparency in the Turkish judiciary”.
– We call for Turkey to release him as soon as possible, it says.
The embassies of the ten countries also refer to a decision in the case of the European Court of Human Rights.
In December 2019, the court called on Turkey to release Kavala as it held that there was no evidence that he had committed the serious offenses he was accused of.
The demonstrations in 2013 began as an attempt to preserve the small Gezi Park, located at Taksim Square in Istanbul, which the government planned to remove in favor of a new shopping center.
But after a short time, the demonstrations developed into nationwide protests against the Turkish government. Several were killed and thousands wounded.
In February 2020, a Turkish court acquitted Kavala and eight others in connection with the anti-government protests in 2013.
However, the freedom did not last long, and shortly after his release, he was picked up by the police again when the prosecutor had issued a new arrest warrant for him. This time on accusations of involvement in a coup attempt in Turkey in 2016.
Osman Kavala denies the charges against him.
Source: The Nordic Page