Canadian rights advocate says Turkey’s post-coup crackdown amounts to genocide

Renee Vaugeois

Turkey’s post-coup witch-hunt against followers of the faith-based Gülen movement is tantamount to genocide, Renee Vaugeois, a Canadian human rights specialist, said in an interview to CBC Television on Monday.

“This a targeted war on a specific group of people in Turkey and to me that speaks to genocide,” Vaugeois, the executive director of the Edmonton-based John Humphrey Centre for Peace & Human Rights, told the state-run CBC news on Monday.

“We need to support those that are putting themselves in danger to try and figure out how to save their families,” she said.

According to CBC news, Vaugeois has recently sent a letter to Canada’s immigration minister, Ahmed Hussen and urging him to expedite the approval of the permanent residency of a Turkish citizen who fled the witch-hunt in Turkey in the aftermath of a July 15, 2016 controversial coup attempt.

Turkish government accuses the Gülen movement of masterminding the putsch, although the latter strongly denies any involvement. The Turkish government has already detained more than 120,000 people over alleged links to the movement, while many local and international human rights groups have reported massive torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has tried to mobilize Turkish citizens to report the alleged followers of the Gülen movement to the police. Erdoğan said in a speech last month that if people affiliated with the Gülen movement are released from prison after completing their prison terms, the Turkish public would “punish them in the streets.”

On some occasions pro-government shopkeepers across Turkey have hung banners on their premises that read, “Gülen sympathizers not permitted.” (turkeypurge.com) July 12, 2017

Take a second to support Stockholm Center for Freedom on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!