Turkey: NGO shut down without reasons given

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Turkey | 04 April 2017

On 8 March 2017 Radio Free Europe reported that the Turkish government ordered one of the largest humanitarian organizations delivering aid to Syrian refugees in Turkey to immediately shut down its operations in the country. The US-based NGO Mercy Corps says Ankara revoked its permit on 8 March without providing any reason for the decision. Since 2012, Mercy Corp has been delivering lifesaving humanitarian assistance every month to as many as 500,000 civilians in Syria. The group also helps some of the 2.7 million Syrian refugees who have fled into neighboring Turkey, as well as poor Turkish families. ‚ Rolf Zeegers, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, points out that Mercy Corps is not a Christian organization and that therefore religion is not the driving force behind the Turkish decision to stop the invaluable work of this NGO. He comments: "The big question remains as to why the Turkish government has taken this step. We know that Turkey is on its way to the April 2017 referendum in which the Turkish population will have to decide about whether to expand President Erdogan"s powers or not. We know that the atmosphere in Turkey is polarizing enormously and that all kinds of freedoms have been curtailed, and many opponents have been jailed. But the fact that the Turkish government ends humanitarian work aimed at helping people (including Christians) who have fled the atrocities of war in their own country and who have left everything behind, is beyond comprehension. If this can happen, what will come next?"