Activists mark 1,000 days in custody for high-profile Turkish campaigner

Osman Kavala has been held pending trial since 2017 after being accused of plotting against the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Businessman and campaigner Osman Kavala has spent 1,000 days in a Turkish jail without trial. Opera Circus

Campaigners marked a Turkish businessman's 1000 days in custody with events to highlight his role as the country’s most high-profile arts patron and human rights defender.

Osman Kavala, 62, was arrested in 2017 on what his supporters said was trumped-up charges of plotting to overthrow the Turkish government after he organised a protest at a park in Istanbul that was earmarked for a shopping centre.

The protest in 2013 escalated and spread to several towns and cities, leading to the deaths of six people including two police officers.

The National reported this month that his plight inspired a short opera about two snails that shared his cell in the Silivri top-security jail outside Istanbul.

The 1,000-day milestone this week was marked by supporters around the world with animations, films, interviews, artworks and the laying out of 1,000 stones in a London park, said campaign group Amnesty International.

“These are not individual expressions of solidarity but part of a collective worldwide call on Turkey to end the relentless crackdown on dissenting voices, and to free Osman Kavala,” said Milena Buyum, the group’s Turkey campaigner.

“We have been deeply moved by the outpouring of creativity in support of Osman Kavala. People from all over the world are determined not to let this darkly symbolic day pass unnoticed.”

The European Court of Human Rights demanded Mr Kavala’s release in December last year after finding he could not reasonably be expected to be seeking the government’s overthrow.

He was briefly released into police custody in February but returned to jail after being accused of other crimes.

Campaigners said the detention of the country’s best-known supporter of culture was aimed at sending a message to critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We will not stop until he walks free and this unbearable injustice ends,” said a representative of the Free Osman Kavala Campaign.