Monitoring Desk
ANKARA: The far-right and anti-refugee Victory Party of Turkiye has started to raise funds, promising to use them to buy one-way bus tickets to send every Syrian refugee back home.
The party has also requested its supporters to share ideas on how the refugees can be sent back to Syria. The far-right party declared that it would purchase tickets for refugees and others who support refugees living in Turkey.
Turkish Fundraising Campaign
In a message posted on Twitter, Umit Ozdag, the party’s founder, invited supporters to come forward to make “early bookings”. “Ticket sales for Zafer Tourism’s one-way trips to Damascus have just begun,” he said.
The Victory Party promised to deport all Syrian refugees in a year if voted to power, declaring them “persona non grata.” Ozdag is also targeting Turkish people who have taken a pro-refugee stance, such as journalist Nagehan Alci, with its most recent campaign. Ahmet Hamo, a journalist from Turkey who is also of Syrian origin, was the campaign’s target that featured a bus ticket bearing his name. Ozdag has previously vowed to strip Hamo of his Turkish citizenship.
According to Ruhat Sena Aksener, acting director of Amnesty International Turkiye, many refugees and asylum seekers in Turkish camps live in constant terror of being sent back to the war-torn country from where they escaped. She said that the dread of being sent back is racist threats and such actions increase when such discriminating words are made in public.
The refugee issue is the third most pressing concern for Turkish nationals after the economy and terrorism, according to a study by Global Akademi.
In contrast to the UN estimate of approximately 3.6 million, Victory Party founder Ozdag recently claimed that 13 million refugees were living in Turkey without providing any supporting information to substantiate his claim.
According to Basdas, a human rights and migration researcher at the Center for Fundamental Rights at Hertie School in Berlin, the estimate is purposefully exaggerated and serves mainly to incite xenophobia and fear among the Turkish public. She claimed that the Victory Party’s most recent campaign violated international law and sought to normalize violence against certain people.
“The Victory Party’s racism and discrimination, which they have termed “love of the country,” is actually a recipe for a future marked by hatred, mistrust, and violence, not just toward immigrants but also toward all citizens who support human rights and the rule of law in a nation that has been steadily losing its democratic foundation.”
Basdas claimed that in recent years, risking people’s lives has evolved into a political tactic to win votes by diverting attention away from other, more critical matters. The few people who speak out against these strategies are targeted to silence them. She also criticized Europe for not following its commitments in this regard.
