‘Terrorist Propaganda’ Charge Stifles Free Speech
The decision to prosecute scores of academics for signing a January 2016 petition criticizing the Turkish government’s actions in southeastern Turkey seriously violates the right to free speech and academic freedom, Human Rights Watch said today. The charges are also a misuse of terrorism laws.
The first hearings of 148 of the 1,128 academics who are standing trial for having signed the peace declaration of the Academics for Peace, begins on December 5, 2017.
The first hearings of 148 of the 1,128 academics who are standing trial for having signed the peace declaration of the Academics for Peace, begins on December 5, 2017. The trials will continue until May 17, 2018.
The penal case against the signers of the Academics for Peace petition is a shocking miscarriage of justice, which friends of the Turkish people can only view with dismay. The wording of the indictment, throughout, makes it clear that the case is an assault against fundamental rights of free expression that should be zealously safeguarded. To take only one example, the signers are accused of calling on the government “to lift the curfew, punish those who are responsible for human rights violations, and compensate those citizens who have experienced material an
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 27, 2017
NEW YORK—The arbitrary use of judicial power in targeting signatories of the January 2016 Academics for Peace petition is the latest in a long series of legal charges filed against civil society actors by authorities, and demonstrates the Turkish government’s ongoing campaign to silent dissent in all its forms.
In January last year, more than 2,000 academics, mostly Turks, petitioned the Turkish parliament calling for an end to what they said was the “deliberate planned massacre” and “deportation of Kurdish people” since the resumption of conflict with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists the previous July.
Istanbul Chief Prosecutor indicts academics on trumped-up terrorism charges for signing peace declaration. An indictment has been issued for academics from several universities who have signed the peace declaration named “We will not be a party to this crime”. The academics are being charged with “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and are facing 7,5 years of imprisonment. The indictments are being filed by Istanbul Public Chief Prosecutor’s Office. The exact number of academics who are all charged with the same indictment but on an individual basis.
The situation for academics in Turkey has dramatically worsened since the failed coup on July 15, a matter of increasing importance given the investigations, firings, deportations, trials, and detentions of academics even prior to the coup. In January of this year, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had already stretched the term “terrorist” enough to apply it to over one thousand members of Academics for Peace for publishing a petition. This threat to academics was foreshadowed in previous attacks on journalists and opposition lawmakers.
Scholars charged with terrorism offences almost two years after signing anti-war petition
Turkish academics who signed an anti-war petition could face up to seven-and-a-half years in prison after new charges were filed against them.
Almost two years after 1,128 people signed what has become known as the "Academics for Peace" petition in January 2016, which condemned military action in south-east Turkey, several of its signatories have been told they will face charges of “propagandising for a terrorist organisation”.
