Council for Justice, Equality and Peace (COJEP)

COJEP (Coun­cil for Jus­tice, Equal­i­ty and Peace; French: Con­seil pour la Jus­tice, l’E­gal­ité et la Paix) is an NGO based in Stras­bourg, France, that describes itself as work­ing in the spheres of human rights, democ­ra­cy, fight­ing against racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion, inter­cul­tur­al dia­logue, and oth­er soci­etal mat­ters. COJEP was found­ed in 1992 in Belfort, France, and shared its head­quar­ters with Mil­lî Görüş. COJEP act­ed as the youth branch of the move­ment before split­ting from it and mov­ing to Stras­bourg in 1996. COJEP has tak­en the same posi­tions as Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s AKP, polit­i­cal­ly oppos­ing a bill that would crim­i­nal­ize denial of the Armen­ian geno­cide and using AKP talk­ing points in speak­ing against crit­i­cism of the Turk­ish government’s han­dling of the Gezi Park protests. COJEP’s founder and pres­i­dent, Ali Gedıkoğlu, has called Mil­lî Görüş his “camp” and has been pros­e­cut­ed for incite­ment of hatred against crit­ics of Pres­i­dent Erdoğan, to whom Gedikoğlu’s son is now an advi­sor.  COJEP has sta­tus or mem­ber­ship in the Unit­ed Nations Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil, Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, UNESCO, and the Coun­cil of Europe. Sev­er­al COJEP offi­cials have had impor­tant posi­tions in France’s Equal­i­ty and Jus­tice Par­ty (Par­ti Égal­ité Jus­tice), includ­ing Gedikoğlu, and the two orga­ni­za­tions share the same address.