We are an international network of artists who came together through Salzburg Global Seminar’s program “Conflict Transformation through Culture: Peace-Building and the Arts” in 2014.
We the undersigned appeal to the President of Turkey to review the case of Osman Kavala as a matter of urgency. We represent organisations and initiatives worldwide that seek to use culture and the creative arts to improve understanding between different societies and ways of life, and where possible to help resolve conflicts. We are non-political. We all strive to remain loyal citizens of the countries we live in.
Osman Kavala is an outstanding member of our community. He is a man of the highest principle. He is scrupulously honest, rigorously truth-seeking, brilliantly effective in everything he does, devotedly caring and magnificently generous. Osman not only represents the best of what we as an informal group can offer; he is a wonderful ambassador for Turkish culture and for the values of empathy, passion, justice, tolerance and human dignity that characterise the Turkish way of life.
