Ayşe Gül Altınay, Turkish gender studies scholar and one of the EJWS associate editors, has been sentenced to 25 months prison for signing a petition calling for peaceful resolution of conflict between Turkish state and Kurdish minority. She is one of over thousand academics currently facing the same assault by Turkish authorities.
In solidarity with Ayşe and others in the same situation, we publish here information about the processes, as well as Ayşe's statements during the hearings in December 2018 and May 2019.
In Turkey and elsewhere, activists and thinkers are consistently under attack, and they need our support. As a lifelong feminist and peace activist, Ayşe continues to advocate for non-violent protest and dignity in the fact of aggression. Here is the statement that Ayşe read out in court on May 21st, 2019:
"Every individual, every family living in this geography has suffered from past wars, migrations and experiences of violence. In terms of the cycle of violence that trauma studies alerts us to, we live in a challenging, vulnerable geography.
Yet, what we make of these past experiences of pain is up to us...
Are we going to turn our pain into more violence, hate, pain and injustice, or into steps that multiply life, beauty, love, peace and justice?
This is the main question that shapes my work and my life.
I firmly believe that we all have new steps we can take towards healing the traumas that have been transmitted from one generation to the other, and to break out of the cycles of violence that we are living through."
Ayşe Gül Altınay’s Statement in Court – December 11, 2018: https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/AltinayStatement-English-2018%20%...