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.
This blog is curated by Academics for Peace Germany e.V. Its aim is, on the one hand, to create an archive of factual and up-to-date information on the ongoing developments that researchers, journalists and others with an interest in the topic can rely on. On the other hand, this blog will provide contextualization and analysis from a variety of different disciplines and theoretic approaches, in preparation of a planned research network on the instrumentalization of law for the suppression of academic freedom in Turkey and elsewhere.
36 of the 1,128 academics who are being tried for having signed the peace declaration of the Academics for Peace, stood trial before İstanbul Court. No academic has been acquitted. Their hearings have been adjourned.
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.
The hearings of the academics who put forth the claim to Peace start on December 5, 2017. Meriç Eyüboğlu said that the academics "are tried separately to be isolated".
The academics who signed the Peace Declaration, titled "We Will Not Be A Party To This Crime" have been threatened, targeted, dismissed from office, and subjected to various accusations since January 11, 2016.
The hearings of the academics who put forth the claim to Peace start on December 5, 2017.
