Court judgment: Besiktas fans acquired after 11 years!

Court judgment: Besiktas fans acquired after 11 years!

A significant change in Turkey: A court in Istanbul has acquired all 35 defendants who were charged during the Gezi protests in 2013 because of their connections to the Besiktas fan club Çarşı. This decision reported by the Cumhuriyet newspaper and other local media is a dramatic turn in a lengthy legal dispute in which fans were subordinate to have launched or managed a "terrorist organization". These protests, which were originally directed against the planned development of the Gezi park, became nationwide demonstrations against the authoritarian policy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and were brutal.

politically motivated charges

The recent decision is not only a legal recognition, but also a strong signal against political persecution in Turkey. Some defendants had already been acquitted and the procedure was rolled up again. However, the judiciary continues to speak: The Istanbul court re-rolled up the Gezi process after criticism became loud that earlier judgments were politically motivated and arbitrarily concluded. Osman Kavala, a prominent cultural sponsor and imprisoned for over three and a half years, is again in focus. He is also accused of espionage, which he himself criticizes as unjustified with reference to the repressive political Situation.

The charges opposite cavala and others, including the journalist Can Dündar living in Germany, seem to be based more on a political statement than on comprehensible evidence. This development had recently caused a sensation worldwide, not least due to the demands of the European Court of Human Rights to leave Kavala released due to a lack of resilient evidence. Despite this international attention, the situation remains tense, and the new procedures throw a shadow on the rule of law in Turkey, as well as the role of judiciary in dealing with government -critical voices, such as n-tv.de reported.