The opening comment is that I'm sure everyone is aware of how disastrous the state of human rights protection is in Turkey at this time, following the attempted coup in the summer of 2016. There's been a massive crackdown that has affected all sectors, including my own Amnesty International colleagues, two of whom have been arrested and imprisoned on absurd charges of terrorism—one, the chair of our Turkish section, is still behind bars eight months later—and their trials continue. That sets the frame for the situation that's unfolding.
We are very much aware of those five cases. I was approached by many of those family members very early on. I've had opportunities to have a fair bit of engagement back and forth with the Canadian government and have welcomed the fact that Canada was very forcefully seeking consular access, which was being denied, which is very problematic, distressing, and outrageous given that Turkey is a NATO ally.
It wasn't specific to Canada. Turkey was denying access to all dual nationals imprisoned in the crackdown.
We remain concerned, in particular about due process issues related to the cases. While some have been convicted—although we have concerns about the fairness of the proceedings and we're looking into some of those concerns—others still have not been brought to trial and are simply brought to court on an occasional basis, only to have the matter adjourned and set over to a future date.
That too is not specific to Canada; it's symptomatic of what we're seeing with respect to all of the ways in which the thousands of prisoners who have been ensnared in the crackdown following 2016 are being treated.