ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that the imprisonment of newly elected opposition lawmaker Can Atalay violated his rights to security, liberty and the right to be elected.
Atalay, 47, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April 2022 after being convicted of trying to overthrow the government by organising the nationwide Gezi Park protests in 2013 along with Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala and six others.
All defendants denied the charges regarding the protests, which they said developed spontaneously, and which marked the biggest popular challenge to President Tayyip Erdogan in his so far two decades in power.
At the time, the verdict was seen as symbolic of a crackdown on dissent under Erdogan and the punishment of the government’s perceived foes through the judiciary.
“It was ruled that there was a violation of rights in the Can Atalay case in terms of the right to be elected and the right to personal freedom and security,” a Constitutional Court spokesperson said in a statement.
The Constitutional Court is expected to send its ruling to a lower court for Atalay, a member of the Workers’ Party who was elected to parliament in May this year, to be freed.
“He should be released as soon as possible after the local court receives the decision,” Akcay Tasci, one of Atalay’s lawyers, told Reuters. Turkey’s top appeals court had upheld the 18-year sentence for Atalay in September.
“The detailed ruling has not been announced yet,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters on Wednesday when asked for comment about the court decision.
The Workers’ Party called for Atalay’s immediate release in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The European Court of Human Rights earlier ruled that Turkey must free Kavala and others for violations of their rights. Erdogan’s government ignored that ruling and Turkey now faces possible suspension from the 46-nation Council of Europe, which seeks to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; writing by Burcu Karakas; editing by Mark Heinrich)
