The seventh stage [of genicide] is “Preparation.” Erdogan and his supporters direct violent phrases at Hizmet participants, including “they will not have access to food and water” and “they will beg us to kill them to avoid torture.” Widespread propaganda calls Hizmet participants “assassins,” “terrorists” or pawns of foreign powers such as the CIA, Mossad or the Vatican.
Ahmet Burhan Ataç, an eight-year-old kid departed to Germany on Sunday for cancer treatment without his parents as the father is in prison and the mother is subject to a travel ban over alleged Gulen links.
An 81-year-old Turkish man, who is known as a “longtime friend of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, was detained by police in the Turkish province of İzmir on Monday due to his links to the Gülen group.
Turkey’s prolonged and arbitrary detention of journalists, human rights defenders, and politicians following the 2016 coup attempt have set back the country’s human rights record, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2020 published on Tuesday.
Albanian authorities on Wednesday deported Harun Çelik, a Turkish teacher at a school affiliated with the faith-based Gülen movement in Albania, to Turkey despite a court order releasing him from his five-month incarceration over an extradition request from Ankara.
One such case is the experience of thousands of Turkish people under the Erdogan regime after the failed coup attempt in July 2016. Soon after the coup attempt, Erdogan’s regime launched a crackdown on opponents and critics, detaining thousands of journalists, rights activists, lawyers, teachers and writers for their alleged involvement in anti-state activities.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a member of parliament from Turkey’s left wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said the health care benefits of a gravely disabled woman were cut off because her son-in-law was a public servant dismissed from his job by government decree.
Asylum seekers are still fleeing Turkey for Canada and other western countries, Kaplan said. “There’s at least 14 families (in my neighbourhood in Ottawa). I mean ladies (with kids). All their husbands have been arrested (in Turkey,)” he said. The women are not comfortable speaking out publicly for fear it could imperil their husbands behind bars in Turkey, he added.
Those who believe they were wrongfully sacked can apply to a special commission to have their case reviewed and either be reinstated or compensated. The commission has “failed to uphold international standards and is acting as a de facto rubber stamp for the initial flawed decisions,” Andrew Gardner, Amnesty’s Turkey strategy and research manager, said.
Canada’s Green Party leader and lawmaker Elizabeth May said during a panel discussion held at the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa on widespread human rights violations in Turkey that “I am entirely horrified by the behaviour of the Turkish government. We need to be more speaking out loud.”