PRESS RELEASE - ASPS URGES GOVERNMENTAL ACTION TO FREE OSMAN KAVALA (04.05.2026)

STRASBOURG 04.05.2026: Directors of Schools of Political Studies are urging the EU and the Council of Europe to live up to their obligations and compel Turkey to free Osman Kavala who was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2022 in a travesty of justice.

The Association of Schools of Political Studies (ASPS) welcomes the recent initiative by a cross-party group of Council of Europe parliamentarians to table a motion to impose targeted sanctions against Turkish officials, including prosecutors and judges, “responsible for the unlawful and arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Osman Kavala”.

Kavala, a philanthropist, human rights defender and founder of the Turkish School of Political Studies should have been released in 2019 following a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights.

Turkey’s obstinate refusal to implement the judgement and the failure of the other States Parties to the the 1950 Human Rights Treaty to take any meaningful action is undermining the protection of individual rights in Europe and the very principles and values on which the EU and Council of Europe are based.

The growing disquiet about Europe’s commitment to its values comes as the European Political Community is this week mulling over how democracies can counter the contempt meted out on them by their authoritarian counterparts.

Meanwhile Council of Europe Member States are preparing to renege on fundamental human rights principles at a meeting in Chisinau next week.

“Watering down the convention and failure to act on blatant rights violations are tragic errors which play straight into the hands of populist authoritarian leaders and only serve to bolster anti-european views” said ASPS President, Jack Hanning.

“Governments should put into practice the principles proclaimed at the 4th Council of Europe Summit in Reykjavik in May 2023.”

 

Notes for Editors

The Association of Schools of Political Studies (ASPS) was set up in July 2008 by the Directors of the Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe to play an enhanced role in the management of their programme, to strengthen links between the Schools and foster their activities.

The first School was set up in Moscow in 1992. Since then other Schools have been established in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.

The Association also has a number of associate members which are not part of the Council of Europe network and notably Schools in Yaoundé and Bishkek.

Jack Hanning has been President of the ASPS since 2024. A former Director of External Relations of the Council of Europe he succeeded Nils Muižnieks (2018-2024) and Catherine Lalumière (2008-2018).

In 2024 the ECtHR condemned the Russian Federation which, on 25 December 2020, had classified the ASPS as an "undesirable organisation" under Vladimir Putin's 2015 legislation aimed at silencing dissident voices, NGOs, the media and human rights defenders.

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