Germany summons Turkish envoy over Kavala’s jailing

Germany summoned Turkey’s ambassador on Friday over the imprisonment of Osman Kavala, a vocal critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan according to a foreign ministry official,

“I can tell you that we summoned the Turkish ambassador to the foreign ministry today and made the government’s position very clear once again,” the spokesman told a regular government press conference.

On Monday, a Turkish court condemned Kavala to life in jail for attempting to overthrow the government. He had already been imprisoned for more than four years without being found guilty.

Some of Turkey’s main allies and rights campaigners swiftly condemned his sentencing.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for his immediate release.

His jailing was “in flagrant contradiction to the rule of law standards and international obligations to which Turkey is committed as a member of the Council of Europe and a candidate for EU accession,” she added.

Campaigner and intellectual Kavala, 64, was jailed over his involvement in a wave of anti-government protests in 2013.

The court also sentenced seven other defendants to 18 years in prison on charges of assisting in the overthrow of the government.

Protests against Erdogan’s administration erupted in 2013, triggered by government plans to demolish an Istanbul park.