Senator Housakos: Thank you, government leader, I will appreciate that. They’ve already filed this brief with Global Affairs Canada a number of weeks ago, and I think these Canadians of Turkish descent deserve an answer on these issues. We have an obligation.

Despite all the nice words from the current government in regards to human rights, we have a long list of inaction that illustrates a broader problem when it comes to our sanctions regimes. They’re used inconsistently and in a manner that is overtly politicized, in my opinion.

The Erdoğan regime has committed widespread and serious human rights violations for many years. Since 2016, it has detained over 300,000 people. Detainees were tortured and raped, and hundreds have died. The latest data from the UN Refugee Agency indicates that 1.3 million people have been forcibly displaced from Turkey, and over 4,000 of these refugees are living right here, thank God, in Canada. Yet the Government of Canada has failed to place a single Turkish official on the sanctions list. When will your government do the right thing, and when will we start using our sanctions tool box to protect the human rights of Canadians of Turkish descent?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Honourable senators, I rise today to give thanks to Mesut Kacmaz, Meral Kacmaz, Murat Acar and Candan Acar, four Turkish-Canadian victims of torture who were brave enough to share their stories with me last month here in Ottawa.

In September 2017, teachers Mesut and Meral Kacmaz, along with their two children, were illegally abducted from Pakistan and taken to Turkey, where they were arbitrarily detained and tortured. Murat Acar was a radiologist and his wife, Candan, was a teacher. They, along with their two children, were illegally abducted from Bahrain and sent to Turkey in October 2016, where they, too, were arbitrarily detained and tortured. These two families sought refuge in Canada after escaping persecution in Turkey, and are now proud to call Canada home.

When we met last month, we spoke about the targeted sanctions submission they filed with Global Affairs, asking the Government of Canada to implement targeted sanctions against the 12 Turkish officials they have identified as responsible for the gross violations of human rights committed against them and against their friend Gökhan Açıkkollu, who was tortured to death in Turkish prison around the same time.

Colleagues, the human rights situation in Turkey is appalling. What happened to these Canadians are examples of a serious and worrying escalation of human rights abuses in Turkey. Since 2016, the Turkish government has detained over 300,000 people, including thousands of prosecutors and judges, and shut down more than 2,000 institutions and 131 media outlets. Turkey detained so many journalists that, for a time, they were the worst jailer of journalists in the world.

There is evidence that detainees are tortured and raped, and hundreds have died in prison. United Nations mechanisms, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Human Rights Committee, have found repeatedly that Turkish officials are responsible for serious human rights violations in this context.

Impunity is pervasive in Turkey, and as Turkish law enforcement is demonstrably unwilling to penalize those responsible, it is up to the international community, including Canada, to hold to account those officials that are responsible for gross human rights violations — especially, colleagues, now that we have Canadian victims of the Erdoğan regime. We owe it to them to do what we can to help them seek justice for the crimes committed against them.

Thank you.

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