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Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic group founded by George Soros, announced Monday that it would cease operations in Turkey, where the organization and its founder were beset by an increasingly authoritarian government.
The organization, which promotes justice and human rights in more than 100 countries, said it would close its office in Istanbul after being targeted with "baseless" accusations making it impossible to work in the country .
The Turkish government has attempted to connect the Open Society to the 2013 Gezi Park protests; the organization denied any role and dismissed the allegation as unfounded. One of the organization's board members, Osman Kavala, has been arrested and jailed for more than a year without being formally charged, the organization said.
"We are deeply dismayed and disappointed that the foundation has had to close," said Monday an Open Society spokeswoman, Laura Silber. But, she said, "this has become completely untenable."
This announcement comes days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Mr Soros in a speech, Reuters reported. Erdogan accused Kavala, one of Turkey's most prominent businessmen and civil society activist, of funding terrorists at Gezi protests and accused Soros of supporting him. .
"And who is behind him?" Said Erdogan, according to the report. "The famous Hungarian Jew Soros. It's a man who assigns people to divide nations and break them. He has so much money and he spends it that way.
This was the latest in a series of attacks on Jewish-born billionaire Jew Soros, a major democratic donor besieged on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the United States, he is the target of anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories and conservative groups often portray him as a villain. He was one of the critics of President Trump to whom explosive devices had been sent in preparation for the mid-term elections. Some have assumed – wrongly – that he had financed a caravan of migrants moving north to Mexico and Facebook last week admitted to hiring a lobbying company that leaked negative information about Facebook's critics, including M Soros.
In Europe, he was vilified by the heads of government. The organization ceased operations in Hungary, Soros' country of birth, in May, under the political and legal pressure of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had been using it for a long time as gold leaf, often in anti-Semitic tropes . Mr. Orban was the lead architect of the campaign of misrepresentation and falsehood directed at Mr. Soros, even photographing him on campaign posters with opposition candidates in the country's spring election. latest.
In this case, Open Society said that it would transfer its operations to Berlin.
Ms. Silber, spokesperson for the Open Society, said the organization did not know if she could continue working in Turkey after the closure of her Istanbul office, but hoped to continue to work with Turkish citizens.
"We are in an era of increasing authoritarianism and closure of civil society," said Silber. "This is not about the Open Society Foundations. It's a much bigger fight at stake – the fight against freedom of expression, against human rights and justice. "
