Following the ongoing prosecution of academics in Turkey, whose only crime is to wish for a future without violence, we sent a letter to the Turkish Ambassador in Israel, The Turkish Ministries of Justice and Education and to other institutions demanding an end to the judicial harassment against the members of Barış İçin Akademisyenler / Academics for Peace (full letter in comments).
Academics for Peace Filiz Arıöz and Tezcan Durna have been sentenced to 1 year and 3 months in prison on charge of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization.” The pronouncement of both verdicts has been suspended.
Trial of academics, who have been charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" for having signed the declaration entitled "We will not be a party to this crime" prepared by the Academics for Peace, continued in İstanbul Çağlayan Courthouse today (May 30).
Examining the individual applications of 10 Academics for Peace signatory to the declaration “We will not be a party to this crime,” the Constitutional Court has postponed the meeting as the Ministry of Justice did not deliver the requested “opinion”.
Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice stands in solidarity with Professor Ayşe Gül Altinay
On May 21, Ayşe Gül Altınay, Sabanci University in Istanbul, was sentenced to 25 months in prison for ”willingly and knowingly supporting a terrorist organisation as a non-member.” This is because she signed the statement “We will not be a party to this crime” in support of colleagues, democracy and academic freedom.
She was an invited speaker at an Uppsala Forum event this February.
Anthropologists in Taiwan are deeply concerned with the recent prosecution and sentencing of our Turkish colleague Dr. Ayşe Gül Altınay, a professor at Sabancı University.Dr. Ayşe Gül Altınay, one of the scholars who signed a petition three years ago that called for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict, was recently sentenced to 25 months in prison by the Istanbul 25th Heavy Penal Court. Dr. Altınay is a world-renowned anthropologist who has a Ph. D. from Duke University and expertise in the fields of militarism, feminism, and non-violent activism.
Central European University expresses solidarity with the highly regarded academic Ayse Gül Altinay, sentenced by the Turkish authorities to 25 months in prison for signing a peace petition. Such actions are always unacceptable, but especially so in a country that claims to respect freedom of speech and academic freedom.
Statement by Dr. Ayse Gül Altinay, May 21, 2019 (read out in court)
Ayşe Gül Altınay, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Gender and Women’s Studies Center at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, is an important member of the Memory Studies community.
Ayşe Gül Altınay, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Gender and Women’s Studies Center at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, is set to give a keynote at the summer school organized by the Mnemonics network in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in September 2019.
The American Mathematical Society’s Committee on Human Rights of Mathematicians has recently voiced objections to the political prosecution of the Turkish mathematicians Betul Tanbay and Ayse Berkman, who are among the thousands of signatories of the petition protesting military action taken by the Turkish military against Kurdish provinces. Signatories of this petition, including mathematicians and other scholars, have been threatened with the loss of the right to travel and their positions. Recent news indicates that the situation in Turkey is worsening.
