Turkey’s academic community has been a major target of the massive purges in the wake of the botched coup attempt last year, with more than 4,000 academics expelled from universities across the country so far.
Turkey's university lecturers remain defiant, despite what they describe as heavy-handed police tactics during protests against the latest sacking of 330 academics.
When I heard the news on late Tuesday night, I did not know who to pity more than the other. I knew a few of the victims, but the first one I thought was a soft-spoken, elderly gentleman; Prof İbrahim Kaboğlu, from Marmara University, a top Turkish expert on constitution and law.
His civil courage has remained a contrast with his mild manners: he is one of the flag bearers of those who against all odds defend the value of the rule of law. Tuesday night, this senior scholar from Istanbul was ‘awarded’ by being fired, in a most arbitrary way.
The Education and Science Worker’s Union (Egitim-Sen) organised a meeting at Ankara University under the name of “no, we are not leaving” protesting dismissals of academics by the decree laws published on Friday. However, the police and the security officers did not let the academics enter the university. On the insistence of the academics and students to go in, the police intervened and arrested several protesters.
A new decree law ordering the dismissal of 4,464 public servants was issued by the Turkish government on Tuesday; the dismissals included 330 academics.
It has emerged that half of the 330 academics purged with the new decree law signed the peace declaration criticising curfews in predominantly Kurdish southeastern districts in 2015 and early 2016.
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues its push to silence all centers of dissent and restyle education along ultranationalist and reactionary lines after publishing a new state of emergency decree expelling 330 academics
As the only faculty member at Bingöl University to sign the Academics for Peace petition, Eda Erdener thought she would probably be investigated, and braced herself for an appearance before prosecutors. What she didn't prepare for was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly assailing the signatories — labeling them terrorists and traitors. She also didn't expect to see the partisan press publish personal details alongside her photograph, or receive online messages from the military police, or have a black Jeep follow her constantly.
Turkish philosopher describes shock at being stopped from packing up office after sudden dismissal
A Turkish philosophy professor has described how she was stopped from removing her belongings from her former office after her sudden dismissal.
For Turkey’s academics, the new year began with a new wave of dismissals. With 2017 not yet a week old, 631 researchers and professors lost their jobs with the stroke of a pen.
In the course of the past year, thousands of Turkish scholars were fired or suspended in a similar manner, victims of the government’s sweeping purge following last summer’s failed coup. More than a dozen universities were simply shut down by decree.
Rudimentarily masked by arguments of counter-terrorism, Turkish society has been put into a straitjacket, with no form of dissent being acceptable.
