A Turkish court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant requested by the prosecutor for actor Memet Ali Alabora for his support of the anti-government Gezi Park protests that allegedly aimed to undermine the government in the summer of 2013.
The prosecutor accuses Alabora of staging a play titled “Mi Minör,” which encouraged people to rebel against the head of state of an unnamed country and starting in 2011 of planning the Gezi protests, which aimed to “overthrow the government of Turkey.” Videos shot by Alabora in 2011 that include such phrases as “Rebel Istanbul” are cited as evidence for the plot.
The prosecutor also claims that preparations for the play were followed by a series of foreign trips that Alabora made with jailed activist Osman Kavala, who is accused of being a financier of the Gezi Park protests.
The arrest warrant was requested by prosecutor Hasan Yılmaz, who argued that Alabora met with the leader of an organization named OTPOR, which played a role in rebellions in Georgia and the Arab world.
The warrant also stated that the domestic organization of the Gezi protests was carried out by Kavala, while philanthropist George Soros was listed as the foreign sponsor of the protests. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently accused Kavala and Soros of organizing the 2013 protests that targeted him when he was prime minister.
The prosecutor claimed in the statement that the ultimate objective of the Gezi Park protests was to create chaos and destabilize the government.