HRF publishes full page ad telling President Erdoğan ‘You are not welcome’

The New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF) on Tuesday took over the city’s subway newspaper to demand an end to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “brutal crackdown against anyone who opposes him.”

The foundation published a full-page ad in the city’s subway newspaper, Metro, in order to protest the visit of Erdoğan to the United States saying, “You are not welcome.”

Underlining that although Turkey was once a democracy, it has entered a downward spiral into dictatorship, HRF said President Erdoğan is to blame for the shuttering of 149 media outlets, the closing of 2,099 schools and universities, the firing of more than 141,553 civil servants, the jailing of over 80,000 government critics and the arrest of some 319 journalists.

The foundation criticized Mr. Erdogan for “using the failed coup attempt as an opportunity” to carry out a crackdown on opposition voices. The HRF also published some of the faces of “the greatest purge the 21st century from Erdogan’s Turkey.”