CHP lashes out at gov’t over Kavala verdict

ANKARA

Justice cannot be through fictional legal procedures, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said, criticizing the government for issuing a life sentence against businessman Osman Kavala and other defendants over the 2013 Gezi Protests.

“Osman Kavala was sentenced to life over a case in which he was acquitted a couple of years ago. There is no another sample of such an oddity in the world. It happened in Turkey because there is no longer independent judiciary,” Kılıçdaroğlu said at a weekly address to his parliamentary group on April 26.

A heavy panel court in Istanbul sentenced Kavala to life in jail on April 25 on charges of trying to overthrow the government by supporting the Gezi protests and playing a role in the 2016 coup attempt. Seven other defendants were sentenced to 18 years in prison over the same charges.

The Gezi protests were a platform for young people to express their discomfort over the governmental policies, including economy, life styles, environment and education, Kılıçdaroğlu said. “What Gezi protests were about? In our history, it was for our youth to voice their demand for freedom. They said they wanted to live freely in their own country.”

Kılıçdaroğlu vowed to continue his political struggle against those who sell their homeland, those who deprive millions of people of fundamental needs and those who cut the electricity of millions of people.

“I want to call on my fellows: Those who don’t want to be a part of this struggle should part the ways from now,” he stated. “We are entrusted to each other. This country has been entrusted to us. None of us is full when one of us is hungry. When one of us is in the dark, none of us is in the light.”