Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I wish we could have his confidence that the moves toward democratization remain strong. We would argue completely the contrary: that the siege on human rights, that has been unrelenting since the coup attempt, is counterproductive to any democratic process. International human

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We don't have an accurate up-to-date number, so I would hesitate to put one on the record. It's been very difficult to get that kind of information. Clearly, it's still absolutely in the tens of thousands. We believe that around 50,000 people are still held right now in pretrial

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Number one, the judicial system was itself decimated by a massive number of layoffs. It was unprecedented. I can't think of a country around the world that has seen that sort of attack on the judiciary in such a short period of time, so they had a capacity issue. Certainly our

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, subcommittee members. It's always a pleasure to be in front of you with respect to human rights concerns around the world. As you will see in a moment, we have particular reason to be appreciative of the attention you are turnin

Foreign Affairs committee  I would agree with that, and that describes Amnesty International's work too. We're always making those exact same assessments, go public or not, big campaign, behind the scenes lobbying, press release yes or no, for exactly the reasons you've highlighted. You want to pursue stra

Foreign Affairs committee  Amnesty International in no circumstances ever calls on any government to rupture diplomatic relations. We don't call on governments to maintain them. We largely recognize that this is more than anything a political assessment. We do note that if diplomatic channels are open, it

Foreign Affairs committee  No. Let me specify, however, a few things about what we are or are not saying about those other kinds of cases. For exactly the reason you've described, we're not saying there should be a legal right for permanent residents and others to consular assistance. That's not the law. I

Foreign Affairs committee  Most certainly we would be pleased to provide some of that to you. I don't know if Mohamed has some of that information at his fingertips but we can certainly compile some examples of how other jurisdictions have dealt with this and provide it to the committee.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll begin, and I'm sure Mohamed will have something he wants to add. We have not sat down to draft the provision. That might be a helpful next step; I don't think it would be lengthy. We're not looking at pages and pages of legislation, at least for this particular aspect of en

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll start, and Mohamed may have something he wants to add. This is one of those areas where the Amnesty International response would be that our area of concern is with respect to human rights cases, which isn't necessarily only about imprisonment obviously. Canadian find thems

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll certainly leave it to Mohamed to answer the question about journalists. I would just point out that we're not saying that journalists deserve more protection. I think what we're saying is that journalists, because of their particular situation, deserve specific kinds of prot

Foreign Affairs committee  Okay.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's important to recognize that the international human rights system is not about guilt or innocence. There are many human rights provisions that apply universally to all people in all circumstances. Even when there is every reason to think someone has committed a crime—and the

Foreign Affairs committee  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 In

Foreign Affairs committee  There's absolutely no question of that. We have documented that going back decades and decades, in fact, going way back to the time of the Shah. Evin Prison has always been notorious as a place of rampant torture. As Mohamed reminded us, it has previously claimed a Canadian victi