POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN This blog has regularly posted items in support of faculty and students resisting attacks on academic freedom at universities in Turkey (see, for examples, here, here, and here; see also from Academe magazine, Fall 2019, here). Now Turkish universities are facing another crisis: the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes that hit…
The AAUP signed the below declaration of support for resistance to political attacks on academic freedom at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul from BOYUT, the community of Boğaziçi University alumni living outside of Turkey. They write:“The Erdogan government has been intervening in the institutional autonomy of Bogazici University since Jan. 1, 2021, in an attempt to…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN More than seven hundred scholars in Turkey have been prosecuted on criminal charges solely because they signed a peace petition calling for a halt to the fighting between Turkish forces and members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and an end to what they described as the “deliberate massacre and deportation…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Earlier today, a Turkish court sentenced an academic, Yonca Demir from Bilgi University, to three years in prison for the crime of signing a peace petition critical of the government. It marked the longest sentence yet given to the 1128 professors who signed a 2016 petition by Academics for Peace that angered…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is excerpted from a December 7 article on the website of the Index on Censorship. A group of court reporters scurried along the halls of Istanbul’s massive Çağlayan Courthouse on the morning of 7 December, taking pictures of the tables showing the trial schedules of several high criminal courts…
BY HANK REICHMAN According to a report on the website turkeypurge.com, 5,717 teachers at 117 universities have been dismissed from their jobs in Turkey due to government decrees issued under a state of emergency following the failed coup of July 2016. A total of nine government decrees issued between September 2016 and August 2017 dismissed…
BY HANK REICHMAN In the year since the attempted coup in Turkey, a “staggering” number of academics have faced criminal investigations, detentions, prosecutions, mass dismissal, expulsion and restrictions on travel, according to an open letter to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, signed by Robert Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk (SAR), the New…
BY HANK REICHMAN In November I posted to this blog the text of a letter from an imprisoned Turkish scholar, Dr. Sedat Laçiner,. The following is the text of a blog post written by Dr. Laçiner, shortly before his imprisonment: Opponent or Terrorist? Dramatically Changing Nature of Turkish Democracy Sedat Laciner In advanced democracies, the…
BY HANK REICHMAN The continuing assault on academic freedom in Turkey, which began last spring and intensified after the failed July coup attempt, continues. (For previous coverage on this blog go here.) According to Scholars at Risk, “On October 29, 2016, Turkish authorities issued a decree ordering the dismissal of 1,267 academic personnel, and the…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Even before the failed military coup of July 15 in Turkey, concern about academic freedom in that country was growing. On March 30, AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum and I issued a “Statement on Academic Freedom in Turkey,” expressing grave concern about attacks on more than 1,000 Turkish scholars. In July numerous…