Dayanışma / Solidarity

Öykü Arin Yazıcı is only 3.5 years old. In 2018, she was diagnosed with Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia (JMML) at the İzmir Dokuz Eylül University Hospital. JMML is a rare type of leukemia. The incidence rate of the disorder is 1-9 in one million, according to the Paris based Orphanet database.

Noam Chomsky, Şeyla Benhabib ve Judith Butler gibi isimlerin de aralarında yer aldığı 1800 bilim insanı, Barış Akademisyenlerine yönelik yargılamaları kınayarak akademideki ihraçlarda işbirlikçi konumundaki kurum ve üniversitelerle ilişkilerin de dondurulması çağrısı yaptı.

Farklı ülkelerden 1800 bilim insanı, “Bu Suça Ortak Olmayacağız” bildirisini imzaladıkları gerekçesiyle üniversitelerden ihraç edilen ve yargılanan Barış İçin Akademisyenleri için çağrı yaptı.

Political scientist Füsun Üstel, a professor who retired from Galatasaray University in Istanbul, was among the first of 1,128 [2212] scholars to undergo trial for having signed the Academics for Peace Petition, a letter publicized in January 2016 that denounced the Turkish state's violation of the basic rights to life, liberty, and security of civilians in Kurdish cities. Üstel was also the first academic to refuse the legal provision the courts offer when prison sentences are less than two years.

La Conférence des Présidents d’Université française (CPU) vient d’être informée de la situation de Madame Füsun Üstel, Professeure de Sciences politiques à l’Université de Galatasaray, aujourd’hui à la retraite, qui vient d’être condamnée à 15 mois de prison ferme pour avoir signé en 2016 une pétition en faveur de la paix avec 1127 autres universitaires turcs.

In a petition made public in January 2016, 2212 academics and researchers from Turkey, supported by several hundred international academics—called on the Turkish government to abide by the domestic and international law and to return to the peace process that had been interrupted in July 2015. After the petition was made public, the signatories were specifically targeted by President Erdoğan and subsequently attacked, threatened and became subject to administrative and criminal investigations. Some were arrested and kept in prison.

International solidarity is crucial at this time when our colleagues are facing criminal trials.

In an open letter to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul, HRK President Professor Dr Horst Hippler has expressed strong criticism of the prosecution of a large group of Turkish academics, whose trials are scheduled to begin this week.

ARTICLE 19 calls for the charges to be immediately dropped against all the signatories of the “Academics for Peace” petition and for anti-terror legislation to be reformed in line with international human rights standards.