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


Date posted: July 11, 2017

Turkey’s post-coup witch-hunt of the Gulen movement followers is tantamount to genocide, Renee Vaugeois, a Canadian human rights specialist said in a recent interview.

“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 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 concluded.

According to CBC news, Vaugeois has recently sent a letter to Canada’s immigration minister Ahmed Hussen 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 the July 15, 2016 coup attempt.

Turkish government accuses the Gulen movement of masterminding the coup attempt while the latter denies involvement. The government has already detained more than 120,000 people over links to the movement, with many human rights groups reported torture and maltreatment on those detainees.

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

On some occasions, pro-government shopkeepers across Turkey hung banners on their premises that read: “Gulen sympathizers not allowed inside.”

Source: Turkey Purge , July 11, 2017


Related News

Gülen-linked journalists organization voices concern over profiling claims

The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), one of the most prominent institutions affiliated with Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, released a statement expressing its concerns over the government’s claimed profiling of citizens, civic groups and public employees. “It is worrisome to witness developments that echo the said “National Security Board decision, such as the plan to ban prep schools, the profiling of public employees or the purging of bureaucrats who are affiliated with certain communities,” the statement published on the institution’s website said.

What’s not to love in this coup?

Up until yesterday, those who were dying to get a good seat in the “Turkish Olympiads”, now shamelessly intimidate the Turkish Olympiads organizers by saying “you think you have grown into a man by making two African and three Asian kids recite a Turkish a song.”

Islamic scholar Gülen rejects involvement with graft probe and wiretappings

“If among those who conducted the graft investigations were some people who might be connected to the Hizmet movement, was I supposed to tell these people, ‘Turn a blind eye to the corruption charges?’ It appears to me that some people were expecting me to do this. Did they expect me to do this? How can I say something that would ruin my afterlife? How else can I act?” Fethullah Gülen said.

Erdogan’s critics in Germany living in fear of his long arm

When Ercan Karakoyun goes to a restaurant in Kreuzberg or Neukölln, Berlin’s boroughs with a large migrant population, he never sits with his back to the door. When he leaves, he looks left and right before exiting, to make sure no one is waiting for him. He also stopped visiting Turkish mosques, fearing an attack.

Şifa University rector says gov’t move to shut down hospitals won’t affect education

İzmir-based Şifa University Rector Professor Mehmet Ateş has said a recent decision by the İzmir Governor’s Office to shut down the university’s additional outpatient polyclinics in the province will not affect education at the university’s main campus.

Opposition journalists speak at U.N. panel on Turkey’s human rights record

Two exiled Turkish journalists spoke on a United Nations human rights panel on Turkey’s human rights violations and jailed journalists despite attempts by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to cancel the session.

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

To be able to confront coups

Erdoğan distorts Gülen’s NYT op-ed, says it is about Bank Asya operation

Bank Asya mandates Goldman for strategic partnership

Somalia agrees Turkey’s anti-Gülen crackdown, Kenya, Germany and Indonesia resist

Turkish experts and doctors seek asylum in Greece

[Part 3] Gülen says gov’t cut back on rights and freedoms in Turkey

German minister says state not investigating Gulenists

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News