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| - Pan-European rights body the Council of Europe on Thursday for the first time threatened to launch disciplinary proceedings against Turkey over its failure to implement a court order to release the philanthropist Osman Kavala. Kavala, 63, a civil society activist and critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been in jail since his arrest in October 2017, facing a string of shifting charges linked to 2013 protests and a 2016 failed coup bid. He denies the allegations. He remains in prison in defiance of a December 2019 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which comes under the Council of Europe, that said Kavala was being held to silence him and should be released. The Council's committee of ministers -- responsible for overseeing the implementation of ECHR judgements -- now has for the first time threatened to launch infringement proceedings against Turkey over its failure to release Kavala. The committee said in a statement that the "continuing arbitrary detention" of Kavala was "a flagrant breach" of Turkey's commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights and "unacceptable in a State subject to the rule of law". The ministers added they would ensure implementation of the ECHR judgement through "all the means at the disposal of the Organisation, including if necessary infringement proceedings". Infringement proceedings can result in the suspension of the member state's voting rights and membership of the Council of Europe, which Turkey joined in 1950, according to Human Rights Watch. An Istanbul court in May again extended Kavala's detention -- even though he has never been convicted of any crime -- with the activist comparing his treatment to a Nazi show trial. Erdogan has repeatedly targeted Kavala, accusing him of being the agent in Turkey of billionaire financier and pro-democracy campaigner George Soros. Rights groups have also urged Turkey to free former pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) leader Selahattin Demirtas -- held since November 2016 -- who is also still in prison in defiance of an ECHR ruling. The ECHR had in December 2020 said that Demirtas -- who has now been handed three convictions in separate trials with more cases pending -- had been detained "to stifle pluralism and limit the freedom of political debate". The committee called on Turkey to submit an action plan in the case by June 22 and said the issue would be re-examined at its next meeting in September. The possibility of launching infringement proceedings against a member state for failing to implement ECHR judgements has only been used once before, in 2017 in the case of Azerbaijani opposition activist Ilgar Mammadov. Mammadov was released from jail in Azerbaijan in August 2018. sjw/har
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