Starting with the publication of an ‘Academics for Peace’ petition in January 2016, and further increasing after the attempted coup in July 2016, large numbers of state employees in Turkey have suffered dismissal or other sanctions without due process. Among them are several thousands of academics. Many Turkish universities have actively collaborated in the implementation of these government measures against their employees. Under its Human Rights Policy, Ghent University considers such universities as (co-)perpetrators of serious human rights violations. This means that most types of collaboration with these universities are excluded, at least up until 2020 when the situation at the former partner universities will again be assessed, on the occasion of the general agreement renewal exercise under the post-2020 successor to the Erasmus programme.
For more information on Ghent University’s Human Rights Policy, see https://www.ugent.be/en/ghentuniv/principles/internationalisation/humanr....