Osman Kavala

His family moved from Northern Greece to Turkey in the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

Mehmet Osman Kavala (born 2 October 1957) is a Turkish economist, businessman, human rights defender, philanthropist and civil society activist who has supported numerous civil society organizations in Turkey since the early 1990s.

Kavala is the founder and chair of the board of Anadolu Kültür, an Istanbul-based nonprofit arts and culture organization.

Kavala was born in Paris in 1957 He attended Robert College in Istanbul.

Starting with the early 1980s, Kavala has contributed to the establishment of several publishing companies in Turkey.

Following the coup d'état in 1980, in 1983, he co-founded the publishing house İletişim Yayınları.

Kavala studied management at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara and economics at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, subsequently enrolling in PhD program at The New School for Social Research in New York City but returning to Istanbul upon his father's death in 1982.

After his father's death, he took over the family-owned enterprise Kavala Companies.

In 1984, he co-founded BILSAK (Science Art Culture Services Society), which promoted discussions around gender and ecology.

In 1985, he co-founded Ana Publishing with Nazar Büyüm and Selahattin Beyazıt, which published AnaBritannica (the Turkish version of Encyclopædia Britannica), Britannica Compton's, and Temel Britannica. Kavala is currently a member of the board of directors at Aras Publishing.

Since the 1990s, Kavala has contributed to numerous civil society organizations in Turkey.

He contributed to the establishment of several NGOs that started in the 1990s.

These include TEMA (Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion for Reforestation and the Protection of Natural Habitats), Helsinki Citizens' Assembly, and Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe.

He has been part of the board of directors of Turkish Foundation of Cinema and Audio-visual Culture (TÜRSAK), Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), Association for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (KMKD), Truth Justice Memory Center, and History Foundation of Turkey.

Kavala is also known to be a sponsor of Amnesty International.

He actively participated in the development of Spaces of Culture, a project set out to promote and support cultural activities Izmir, Diyarbakır and Gaziantep.

The project is initiated by Goethe-Institut, the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Institut francais de Turquie, in cooperation with Anadolu Kültür and Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV).

Since 2002, he has spent much time working for the charitable foundation Anadolu Kültür, of which he is the founder and current chair.

Anadolu Kültür runs cultural centers in underdeveloped regions of Turkey and fosters cultural cooperation with countries in the Caucasus and Balkan regions as well as those in the European Union.

The organization supports local, regional, and international collaborations in arts and culture, and promotes for the protection and preservation of cultural heritage.

Its vision is to contribute to a pluralist and democratic society.

Its initiatives include Diyarbakir Arts Center (2002–ongoing), Kars Arts Center (2005–2009), and Depo in Istanbul—hosting exhibitions, talks, screenings, and workshops.

Kavala was a founding member of the Open Society Foundations in Turkey, an international grantmaking network created by the American-Hungarian billionaire George Soros.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan singled Kavala out for criticism, saying "The connections of the person they call the ‘red Soros of Turkey’ are coming to light", and accused Kavala of being responsible for the Gezi Park protests of 2013, and of the "transfer of significant funds to certain places".

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Kavala states: "It seems I was cast in this narrative because I was a board member of the Open Society Foundation in Turkey and because of my open—though not financial—support of the campaign to protect Gezi Park.

In 2013, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan initiated the peace talks to end armed conflict between Turkey and the PKK.

As part of the peace process, members of BDP went to İmralı island to convey messages between both parties (Erdogan and Abdullah Öcalan).

Daily Milliyet got hold of the minutes of the meeting (İmralı Zabıtları) and published a story about it.

In these minutes, the name of Kavala came up.

According to the minutes published by Milliyet, the following line was uttered by BDP's Sırrı Süreyya Önder: "Sir [Öcalan], we have discussed everything. There is also the issue of presidency. It is a delicate matter among the public. Osman Kavala sends his regards to you. They are worried that that the presidential system will change into a totalitarian system."

In the acknowledgements of his 2018 book Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide, historian Hans-Lukas Kieser states that Kavala's assistance was "critical to my successfully starting the research".

In 2018, the Foundation ceased all its activities in Turkey.

In a conversation with journalist Şirin Payzın, Kavala said that he "respected Soros" and that "our views overlap on issues such as the proper functioning of legal institutions, the protection and extension of civil rights, the support of civil society organizations and rights defenders, and immigration policies."

He added that his "views on egalitarian policies in the social and economic fields are different" and that he has been critical of some of the activities of the Foundation in some countries.

In 2019, he received the European Archaeological Heritage Prize from the European Association of Archaeologists for his efforts to protect and preserve significant examples of cultural heritage in danger in Turkey and the Ayşenur Zarakolu Freedom of Thought and Expression Award by Human Rights Association's Istanbul branch.

His arrests in Turkey caused the European Court of Human Rights and ambassadors from ten Western countries to demand his release.

These demands were rejected by Turkish courts and president Erdoğan.

On 25 April 2022, a court sentenced him to life in prison.

In October 2023, Kavala was awarded the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize.

Kavala comes from a family of tobacco traders.