14 Dec 2018 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”104347″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Deniz Altınay doses and tamps coffee in a way that shows he has done it many times before. Just three years ago, his daily routine used to be much different.
Back then, he would often stand in front of a dozen students in a classroom at the University of Mersin and lecture about media and communications. But that was before he and about 20 other academics were dismissed from the university for signing a petition calling for peace in protest against Turkish military operations in Kurdish provinces at the beginning of 2016.
Soon, the coffee machine starts to buzz and gurgle. He turns to students waiting on the other side of the counter and smiles. Along with two other dismissed academics and a friend, Altınay is one of the founders of Kültürhane, which literally means “House of Culture,” in the coastal city of Mersin. Kültürhane houses a library of 5,000 mostly donated books, a working space, as well as a café that doubles as an event venue.
Since Altınay and his partners were banned from teaching, the group of academics created a space where students could regularly drop in, learn and cram for exams. After all, even if they can’t give their high-achieving students an “A” anymore, they can at least serve them coffee and tea for their hard work. It’s a hierarchy that has been turned, if not upside-down, from vertical to horizontal in a country in which the relationship between academics and students is traditionally strict, epitomised by the word hocam, a mark of respect meaning “my teacher” or “my professor” used by every student, even when addressing them informally.
“To be honest, it was harder for our students and our friends to get used to it than for us,” Altınay says, laughing heartily. “Some of my students would say ‘Hocam, please don’t take the trouble of bringing us anything,’ and I would need to tell them ‘on the contrary, you should ask me to bring it because treating my students and friends is a great pleasure for me.’”
Kültürhane has allowed them to realise many things they wouldn’t have perceived at the university, he says. “The things we could change at the university were limited. Transforming the relationship with our students was important for us. We are no longer the university’s employees, and Kültürhane has provided us a very different kind of freedom. We can finally define the limits ourselves.”
Much like Turkey’s universities at present, the country’s streets are most certainly not spaces where people can engage in free speech. As public spaces become increasingly oppressive, the small niches of freedom like Kültürhane become even more valuable. “Here, we are making each other feel better. It’s like therapy.”
And a much needed one. When a platform called Academics for Peace issued a statement on 10 January 2016 calling for the end to Turkish military operations in a number of urban areas in southeastern Turkey, such as Cizre, Silvan, Nusaybin or Diyarbakır’s historic neighbourhood of Sur, they received overwhelming support from their colleagues. Some 1,128 academics signed the statement, while another thousand added their name to the list after the document went public. “We, as academics and researchers working on and/or in Turkey, declare that we will not be a party to this massacre by remaining silent,” the statement read. “We demand an immediate end to the violence perpetrated by the state.”
Those were strong words tearing decades of silence and hypocrisy apart. Intellectuals had kept mum when it came to the dirty military war against the Kurds, but with the nationwide Gezi protests still fresh in the memory, people were finally daring to speak up. The retribution, however, was harsh. Hundreds of academics who didn’t withdraw their signatures were first suspended and then dismissed by decree after the government acquired exceptional powers under the state of emergency that was declared in the wake of a coup attempt on 15 July 2016. Investigations were opened individually against each signatory on charges of “conducting propaganda for a terrorist organisation.”
Thirty-eight signatories of the Academics for Peace petition have been sentenced to 15 months each in prison so far, while two others have been sentenced to 18 months in jail. Some academics, such as political science professors Füsun Üstel and Büşra Ersanlı, rejected the possibility of a suspension of their sentence, meaning that they will spend time in prison when their verdict is upheld on appeal. More than 300 cases are continuing while prosecutors have also launched new trials, including cases against academics in Mersin and Adana. On the flip side, pro-government mafia boss Sedat Peker was recently acquitted in a case that was launched against him for threatening the petition’s signatories, saying he would “take a shower in [their] blood” — a ruling that clearly highlighted the concept of crime according to the Turkish judiciary doesn’t quite correspond to international human rights standards or pretty much to any conventional wisdom.
Solidarity classes against academic ban
Altınay says their ordeal is not just legal but also economic. Many academics had to leave the country to continue their career in universities in Europe or the United States. Others who stayed, either by choice or because they were slapped with a travel ban, struggle to find work and make ends meet.
But the ordeal is ultimately psychological. One of the signatories of the petition, Mehmet Fatih Traş, committed suicide months after being dismissed from the University of Çukurova, in the nearby city of Adana. A letter to a colleague revealed that Traş had experienced significant mobbing from other academics who accused him of being a “PKK sympathiser,” in reference to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party. As a result, the rector’s office cancelled three of Traş’s courses. In tribute and a reminder of the hardships some academics went through, Kültürhane’s library now bears his name.
“What we do shouldn’t be over-romanticised either,” Altınay says. “We are open seven days of the week, we work up to 10-12 hours a day. It’s physical work that also wears you out mentally, and we need to make a living out of it.”
Without a doubt, solidarity among academics has been one of the key elements that has kept them going. One of the first initiatives was founded in the city of Eskişehir in western Turkey a few months after the petition circulated. A group of academics who were suspended from their positions began organising “solidarity classes” off campus. More than 50 classes have been held since under the label of “Eskişehir School.” The initiative’s founders have now opened their own space – a café with a screening room and a workshop studio – called Uçurtma (Kite). Eskişehir, perhaps the only locality in Turkey that resembles a student city thanks to the quality of its university programs, was an ideal place for the burgeoning solidarity to bear fruit.
“We were one of the first groups which became the object of an investigation. We organised the first solidarity class in May 2016. We hadn’t been dismissed yet at the time,” said Pelin Yalçınoğlu, a former lecturer at the faculty of education of Anadolu University. “We wanted to draw attention to what universities were and show that it was not possible to lock knowledge inside a campus. If they were not going to give us space for questioning, we thought we might do it elsewhere.”
Since May 2016, people have gathered every two weeks to learn and discuss a different subject. The day of our interview, Eskişehir School was holding a class on theatre with Tülin Sağlam, a prominent expert on the art of theatre in the country. Just like the organisers, Sağlam was dismissed from her position at the prestigious language, history and geography department of the University of Ankara for signing the petition.
“There were animated debates among us when we decided to choose the name Eskişehir School for our initiative. While we were wondering how we could fulfill [the underlying ambitions], everybody loved the name.” But as time passed, the initiative needed a space to take root. Economic needs were pressing too. If the meagre financial support collected for the school was used in helping out an academic who was dismissed with one of the first emergency decrees, it wasn’t enough for the founders who soon met the same fate. And so was born Uçurtma.
“This is a space to allow Eskişehir School to continue existing,” Yalçınoğlu said. While some of her colleagues started making a transition and others kept working in jobs related to their own field, Yalçınoğlu wanted to invest herself in an activity that could feed Eskişehir School. “What we all want is actually to make Eskişehir School worthy of its name. If you call it ‘school,’ it should have a say and a perspective on the production of knowledge in this country. We would like it to do its own research, publish its own articles, organise seminars and conferences; [we just want it] to go beyond the classes.” Their new endeavour started with a two-day symposium on law and dystopia in November.
Dismissals as censorship
Both Kültürhane and Eskişehir School show that some of the dismissed academics are choosing the road less travelled and keeping up the fight by creating their own spaces for knowledge, even if it means an uncertain future for their careers. In both efforts, the common concern is that the government is now dictating what should be taught at Turkish universities, and what should not.
“There is an intense propaganda activity going on,” Altınay said. “Dismissals are part of this propaganda and also a very serious censorship mechanism. By doing so, they are erecting a very clear obstacle for the expression of certain thoughts. These are not ideological thoughts at all, but scientific truths. And they are raising a generation who won’t know anything about these scientific truths. I don’t know a bigger censorship than that.”
Kültürhane, which turned one this year, became such a breathing space for many people that the founders even became an object of mirth. “They are teasing us, ‘how fortunate that you were dismissed,’” Altınay said. In a year, they have organised around 150 events, discussions or workshops on all types of subjects and topics.
Kültürhane’s co-founder, Ulaş Bayraktar, also feels inspired by the public’s response. “We didn’t plan anything or even know what we were doing. We just had a feeling. I personally never attached a lot of meaning to being an academic or a public servant. Our means have changed, but it’s the same journey. The difference is that we don’t have an official title anymore.” For the future, he hopes to see all the initiatives cooperating together. “If we can develop such a model, I think these initiatives can leave a mark. But I am hopeful. All these efforts give us the hint of the power of being together.”
Yalçınoğlu, Altınay and Bayraktar don’t expect the current situation for dismissed academics to change in the near future. In the face of ever-worsening political pressure and a severe economic crisis, they are determined to conserve their small-scale haven of knowledge. These initiatives should perhaps also be considered as their modest response to their dismissals.[/vc_column_text][vc_images_carousel images=”104349,104348,104346,104343,104342,104341,104345″ img_size=”full” autoplay=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
4 Sep 2018 | Academic Freedom, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”102432″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Hanifi Barış, an outspoken Kurdish academic and lawyer, has been imprisoned by Turkish authorities since 4 July 2018. His detention for sharing press articles on social media is another demonstration of the repeated attacks against freedom of expression and critical opinions in Turkey.
Hanifi Barış obtained his Ph.D from the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law at the University of Aberdeen in 2017. Interested in political theory and human rights, he has published several articles and book chapters on Kurdish politics. After completing his dissertation, Barış moved back to Turkey and settled in Istanbul, where he started working as a lawyer. In his roles as an academic and a lawyer, Barış stood out as an ardent defender of human rights. In 2012, he drew public attention for representing a famous conscientious objector and defending his client’s rights to answer to the court in Kurdish. In January 2016, he was one of the Academics for Peace who signed the petition “We will not be a party to this crime”, which denounced the state-sanctioned violence in the Kurdish regions and called on the Turkish government to re-establish peace negotiations.
On 3 July, Barış received a call from Istanbul Bakırköy Police station, asking him to give a statement about his social media posts. The next day, after giving his statement to the police, he was referred to the court, where the prosecutor requested his arrest. He was accused of producing “terrorist propaganda” on the ground of article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law no 3713. Barış had shared news articles and commentaries from international and local media on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. It is worth emphasising that he did not add any of his own commentary on the posts. At the court’s request Barış was sent to prison on the same day. Since then, the appeals of his lawyer, Mehmet Doğan, for his release pending trial have been repeatedly denied. Even worse, when Barış asked to be moved to another dormitory in Silivri Prison, he was sent to an individual cell and remained in solitary confinement for 12 days.
On 23 July 2018, İstanbul’s 29th High Criminal Court accepted the indictment against Barış and re-affirmed his pre-trial detention. The Court based its decision on an ongoing assessment of digital materials that had been supposedly confiscated during an alleged search of his residence and belongings. However, no such search ever took place. This blatant disregard for the rule of law and due process casts serious doubts on Barış’s prospect for a fair trial, highlighting Turkey’s systematic use of pre-trial detention as a means of intimidation.
The news and commentaries shared by Barış on social media were critical of the Turkish government and its policies in Syria. They included articles from websites such as The Guardian and Foreign Policy. It is absurd to construe those articles as “terrorist propaganda” under article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law, which criminalises statements “justifying or praising or inciting the terrorist organizations’ methods which contain violence, force or threat”. Rather, Barış’s indictment reflects the Turkish government’s criminalisation of free speech and attempt to silence all critical opinions. Just as the repression of critical newspapers and media has been on the rise in recent years, arrests on the ground of social media posts have witnessed a dramatic increase. While the crackdown has particularly targeted Kurdish politicians and activists, journalists, students, lawyers and academics, arbitrary arrests of social media users serve as a warning to all who voice their dissent against the current Turkish regime.
Since early July, Academics for Peace, Barış’s colleagues from the University of Aberdeen and human rights organisations have strongly protested against his detention. An ongoing petition asking for his immediate release has received almost 5,000 signatures. Many of those who signed are internationally-renowned academics. At the University of Aberdeen, which has actively sought to mobilise support since Barış’s arrest, one of his colleagues describes him as “a clear-headed scholar, who draws on his experience as a practising lawyer to make original contributions to thinking on political community and direct or semi-direct democracy”. Barış, he says, is “the kind of scholar who could find common ground with academics from almost any perspective: always good-natured, cheerful and unfailingly kind to everyone he interacted with.”
Barış’s first hearing is scheduled for Sep 18th. International observers are invited to monitor his hearing at Çağlayan Courthouse, with the hope that Barış will be immediately released and cleared of unfounded accusations.[/vc_column_text][vc_cta h2=”TAKE ACTION” h4=”Sign the petition calling for the release of Hanifi Baris” color=”pink”]ACADEMICS, COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN LAWYER DR HANIFI BARIŞ FROM PRISON IN TURKEY[/vc_cta][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]
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Free speech is vital to the free flow of thoughts and ideas. We protect freedom of expression in academia by challenging attempts to restrict free speech on campus.
Learn more about our work supporting academic freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1536049683445-c8237d77-0e30-6″ taxonomies=”55, 8843″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Apr 2018 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]For Turkish academics, signing a dissenting petition can mean expulsion from their job, the country or even jail time. In Noémi Lévy-Aksu’s case, signing the Academics for Peace petition, “We will not be a party to this crime!” meant losing her teaching position at Boğaziçi University.
In March 2017, Lévy-Aksu had flown from London to Turkey to take an exam to become an associate professor. After the exam, she flew back to London to continue her fellowship at the British Academy with an affiliation with Birkbeck College. However, two days later she received an email saying she had been dismissed from her teaching position at Boğaziçi. Following the news of her work and residence permit cancellation, she was notified that she had passed her associate professor exam. In April, she became a Turkish citizen after applying for citizenship in January 2016.
The confusing whirlwind of events left Lévy-Aksu jobless with Turkish citizenship and associate professor credentials. Her story is far from unique as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has increased his government’s squeeze on dissenting voices — whether journalistic, legal or academic.
While best known for the January 2016 “We will not be a party to this crime!” petition, Academics for Peace advocates for peace between Kurds and Turks and condemns government violations of its own and international laws. The organisation, which formed in 2012, is an amalgamation of academics from over 50 universities.
With over 2,000 signatures, the petition hurtled Turkish academics into the dissenting spotlight, prompting Erdoğan to arrest and dismiss academics through emergency decrees. The purges only escalated after the unsuccessful coup in July 2016. Since last November, many signatories have been held on criminal charges and accused of terror propaganda. Ostensible “terrorists” in Turkey, professors and other intellectuals like Lévy-Aksu have been persecuted, which has led to job loss, passport revocation and prison.
In Lévy-Aksu’s case, she has been one of the luckier academics. With her dual French and Turkish citizenship, Lévy-Aksu is able to easily enter and leave the country where she attends hearings of her fellow colleagues and offers her continued solidarity. She is currently finishing up her fellowship in London and recently began studying law at BPP University Law School.
Lévy-Aksu spoke with Sarah Wu of Index on Censorship about the current situation for Turkish academics. Below is an edited version of their conversation:
Index: What role did your participation in Academics for Peace play in your dismissal?
Lévy-Aksu: That was that exact reason why I was fired. It was openly stated. I had been involved in Academics for Peace while I was in Turkey, and when I came to London, I became involved in its UK branch. The Council of Higher Education gave no reason when they revoked my work permit at my university, which was the same case for another foreign academic in the sociology department. When I decided to sue the Council of Higher Education, my lawyer first asked what the reason for dismissal was, and they then said the petition was the main reason. This is the core issue in the ongoing administrative lawsuit I opened against the Higher Education Council and Boğaziçi.
Index: Were your reasons for signing the petition personal or professional?
Lévy-Aksu: I think it was a reaction motivated by anger and the need to say something against what was going on, not only as an academic but as a citizen. Although I was not a Turkish citizen at the time, as a human being I have this duty to speak up and not to stay silent. It was a way to morally and politically react to what was going on and doing it collectively made sense at the time.
Since the beginning of the Turkish Republic, the Kurdish region and Kurdish populations have been consistently targeted by state oppression. Seeing this happening again and again, [signing this petition] was just a way to say, ‘Not again’. The petition was a way, especially for Turkish academics not in the Kurdish region, to say that they were concerned, aware of what was going on, and eager to voice their disagreement.
Index: Do you have any anxiety while traveling to and from Turkey?
Lévy-Aksu: Being a foreigner at the time worked in my favor. My main concern, besides being dismissed, was being expelled from the country, which is quite common for foreign troublemakers. So I applied and surprisingly got the citizenship after being dismissed from the university. It’s funny because I lost my job and then became Turkish. I am therefore lucky enough to travel and I go to Turkey as often as I can as it is still the place I feel I belong to.
Every time I go to Turkey, I hear a lot of criticisms in private by people who are not just political, but by people who want this oppression to stop. Even if they are not leftist or Kurdish, more or less everyone has been affected by the purges or repression. But it’s different when it comes to public discontent. People are now arrested for a tweet or a social media post. A line can send you to prison. So you have to be really brave. The space for opposition has dramatically shrunk.
I still think it’s remarkable that people are still ready to protest despite risking arrest, and if you think about western societies, I’m not sure there would be more resistance in the same context. Who is ready to sacrifice his career, to lose his job, but also his liberty? I think this is a problem that not only concerns Turkey. You need to be really brave to continue speaking up.
There are so many examples of academics and non academics who are, despite all risks, resisting in Turkey. Showing solidarity is the least we can do.
Index: How did the rest of your colleagues fare?
Lévy-Aksu: It depends. My university has been spared of the purges besides me and my other colleague, Prof. Abbas Vali. But in comparison to other universities, I have been much luckier than many others. A great number of friends are stuck in Turkey because their passports have been revoked and are having difficulties finding a job outside of academia. Colleagues in London and other parts of Europe are also in difficult situations. For them, sometimes their passports are revoked after they come here, so now they are stuck and visa renewals are difficult. If they go back, they know they won’t be able to leave Turkey again. It’s a very complex situation, not to mention the financial and job search difficulties. In addition, several signatories of the petition have already been sentenced to 15 months imprisonment (with possibility of a suspensive appeal) for terror propaganda and hundreds of other cases are going on.
Index: Erdoğan was arrested for reading a poem and now he’s doing the same thing with academics. Do you think he is thin-skinned and fearful for his reputation, or is there a deeper meaning behind the academic purges?
Lévy-Aksu: He is relying on the lack of sound democratic tradition, which is what all the previous leaders of the Turkey have done in the past. But of course, the level of control on the institution he has is probably unparalleled in Turkish history.
He has established a system that attempts to control all of society, which attempts to reduce all opposition. It is done now complicitly by many decision makers. These people in institutions are, either by ideological conviction or by fear, doing what is expected of them so that the power can maintain itself. The system, which is bigger than Erdoğan himself, is frightening. It extends to the justice institution, the education system and police. Even more worrying are the mechanisms of denunciation, the use of society and encouragement to denounce your neighbors, your colleagues.
We see it in the universities. Colleagues are denounced by students. Students are denounced by students. You have all these mechanisms that contribute to the polarisation of society and increase fear and potential violence. On both sides, you feel this palpable tension. Even if Erdoğan left, it would not be easy to solve.
Index: Where do you think Erdoğan is taking the university system?
Lévy-Aksu: There’s a push to make religious values the core of education, and it’s something we’ve already felt even before the coup. This increasingly conservative, religious and nationalistic discourse means certain topics can’t be discussed, which means academics can be denounced for expressing critical opinions.
This is the case at my former university. There have been many arrests of students and police are on campus. There was an incident between pro-government and leftist students after the Afrin operation and Erdoğan called for the arrest of those students and a ‘cleaning of the university,’ calling them terrorists, communists and treacherous students and saying they should not be given the right to education. Police are on campus, they are arresting students from the dormitories, and they check IDs in the library – this is what’s happening.
They’re establishing fear not only for politically engaged students but all the academic community, who expect university to be a place of knowledge, not a place of control and repression. Unfortunately, every kind of institution and place of social life is transforming into a place of surveillance and control, and this is the case for universities all over Turkey. Most of them have been extensively purged and most are controlled by the police and administration and by the collaboration of state representatives.
I think it’s a very dark picture. It’s getting darker and darker especially with the beginning of the Turkish military operation in Syria, which again gave a new reason for emphasising nationalist, religious values and arresting people who protested against this military intervention.
Index: Do you think the best form of support for the academics in Turkey is to show solidarity, is it enough?
Lévy-Aksu: This is an ongoing debate among the academics who are still in Turkey and those who are abroad. Of course solidarity is important. It can be financial solidarity with the academics dismissed, it can be helping an academic pursue their research and networking, or giving them access to online classes if they cannot move. Academics for Peace networks in Europe and the US are lobbying to encourage organisations such as Scholars at Risk or CARA, state or regional institutions and foundations to create positions for dismissed academics. In the UK, we have just established the Centre for Democracy and Peace Research to develop projects and partnership to support dismissed academics and, beyond this, critical research and production of knowledge.
Another possible form is one that started last year by the Academics for Peace. The call to freeze all cooperation with complicit universities. It’s a call that has been made by the Academics for Peace networks in the UK, France, Germany and the US. It established a list of complicit universities and calls for academics not to cooperate formally with them. It means not participating in conferences organised by complicit universities and not inviting directors of the universities. As an institutional boycott, it targets the institutions that are persecuting the ideas and opinions of academics.
Until now, it’s had some limited impact. One of the reasons is that it’s not easy for academics to understand the situation in Turkey. Colleagues in Turkey too are divided on this. For some, they think it’s important to keep strong relations with foreign institutions, including bringing colleagues to the university even if it witnessed some arbitrary dismissal. For the ones that have been dismissed, they are expecting this kind of reaction.
I understand there can be reluctance against boycotting, but I think the bare minimum is for people who go to Turkey is to be aware of what is going on. Foreign academics should be able to raise criticisms or questions if they choose to visit these institutions. Otherwise, you become complicit in a way through your silence and not seeing what’s going on. Academics who visit these complicit universities are strongly resented by colleagues who are in Turkey and feel invisible and unable to travel. I think awareness of what’s going on in different countries and global solidarity is important.
I understand that colleagues who have worked with Turkish colleagues for a long time enjoy going to Turkey because it relates to their fieldwork and they have developed fruitful academic collaborations there. Yet knowing these institutions that have persecuted other academics for their opinions should raise moral questions before you visit. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1523868900741-6ff5bed6-c05b-7″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
23 Jan 2018 | Academic Freedom, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”97694″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Since January 2016 the Academics for Peace case has become one of the symbols of the crackdown on democracy in Turkey.
No critical voices are spared in the repression: MPs, journalists, lawyers, human rights activists, students and many others are detained and/or have been prosecuted for their opinions and activities.
Each week brings new politically-motivated trials, where anonymous citizens and prominent figures of Turkey’s political and cultural life are faced with the most serious of criminal charges. Fundamental rights are put in the dock and go on trial and systematically abused. The week beginning 4 December was no exception, with trials targeting Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) politicians, dozens of journalists and the first hearings of scholars connected to Academics for Peace.
Academics for Peace are university professors and graduate students who signed a peace petition entitled We Will Not Be a Party To This Crime in January 2016. This statement denounced the government’s violations of human rights in the Kurdish regions of Turkey, demanded that access to these areas be granted to independent national and international observers and called for negotiations to secure a fair and lasting peace. The petition was initially signed by 1,128 academics and grew to 2,020 in the weeks after it was released. Since then, the signatories have suffered from multiple forms of repression, including criminal and administrative investigations, detention, dismissals and revocation of their passports. As of December 2017, more than 400 academics have been dismissed and hundreds of PhD students have lost their scholarships.
The repression is now reaching a new stage as signatories have been brought before the Istanbul High Criminal Court. Hundreds have been charged with spreading “terrorist propaganda” under Article 7(2) of Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law, which could mean up to seven-and-a-half years in prison. While the indictment has been levelled at the academics as a group, the hearings are individual and distributed over several months. The first hearings were held simultaneously in three different rooms of the Çağlayan courthouse on 5 and 7 December. They offered an insight not just into the deep flaws of the justice system, but also illustrated the determination of the academics to face this new ordeal with firmness and solidarity.
The week started with a day of events organised by the Academics for Peace co-ordination and the education trade union Eğitim-Sen in Istanbul. Meanwhile, several demonstrations and statements of support were released from Europe and the US. On the first day of the hearings, a press statement was organised in front of the courtroom. Besides the defendants, dozens of academics and several international observers were present. While only a few could attend the hearings due to the limited capacity of the rooms, numerous academics and students spent their days at the courthouse to support their colleagues.
The succession of hearings gave an insight into the diversity of the signatories of the petition. PhD students, young lecturers and well-known professors were brought to the court, while a few defendants now settled abroad could not attend. Although all the defendants in that week’s hearing came from two universities in Istanbul, many did not even know each other and greeted their alleged partners in crime at the doors of the courtroom, united by the smallest possible common denominator and the only ground for their criminal charge: their signature on the peace petition.
Lawyers had no difficulties in demonstrating the inconsistencies and blatant errors in the indictment. Incomplete or erroneous references to European cases related to freedom of expression, press articles and governmental statements were provided in lieu of evidence, mistranslated terms in English or Kurdish were among the mistakes most often quoted by the defendants’ lawyers. Beyond that, they insisted that the indictment was irrelevant and criticised the absence of any concrete evidence to support the charge of terror propaganda. Lawyers also reminded the court of the national and international legal texts, conventions and jurisprudence protecting freedom of expression. They underlined that critical thinking was essential to academic work and that by criticising the state, the defendants had behaved as one would expect of intellectuals. While a majority of academics indicated that they would not offer a statement at this first hearing, some presented a defence that followed the arguments of their lawyers, sometimes providing additional information on their personal and/or academic motivations for signing the petition and sharing how absurd they thought the case was. All the cases were adjourned to a later date, stretching from late December until May.
While the case the Academics for Peace sheds light on the persecution of critical scholars in Turkey, not only academic freedom is on trial there. Indeed, the first hearings gave an opportunity to the academics and their lawyers to remind the court of the context in which the peace petition was released: strong statements recalled how violence escalated in the Kurdish region of Turkey after the June 2015 elections and illustrated the impact of state repressions on civilians in the region — endless curfews, unlawful killing of children, corpses abandoned in the streets or kept in refrigerators, destruction of whole neighbourhoods in Cizre or Diyarbakir. Quoting the reports issued by national and international organisations, including the UN, these defences brought to the forefront the realities behind the words of the petition. Beyond this, some lawyers and defendants used the concepts of state violence, discrimination and racism to contextualise the last few years in the longer history of repression targeting the Kurdish region. As in many of the ongoing political trials in Turkey, the hearings turned into a denunciation of the multiple levels of state repression. The prosecutor and judges showed little reaction to these harsh critiques. Obviously, there was little to object to: like many journalists on trial, the academics were charged for making public what was true and ignored by none.
Finally, these hearings revealed yet again that the justice system in Turkey is at a breaking point. As the prosecutor who authored the indictment remained invisible, it was obvious that the judges and prosecutors had little familiarity with the cases. Appearing increasingly weary of the repetitive character of the hearings, they made a compulsive and ostensible use of their phones while the lawyers and defendants were talking. While the lawyers emphasised that the unique indictment should have resulted in a unique, collective trial, this demand was rejected by the court and a large part of the hearings were devoted to copy-pasting the charges and defences for each of the defendants.
Joining the long list of criminal cases against citizens who dared to express their opposition to the government and its policies, the trial of the Academics for Peace is a new illustration of the political use and abuse of justice to silent all critical voices in Turkey.
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