Six Years of Pressure on Turkey’s Academia: An Account of the ‘Academics for Peace’
Prof. Dr. Nejla Kurul, an academic expelled from Ankara University, now chair of the teachers' union Eğitim-Sen, recalls events that followed the 'Peace Petition' signed on 11 January 2016, and makes assessments.
In 2013, the Turkish authorities and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) began a so-called ‘peace process’ in an attempt to resolve the decades-long conflict between them. After two years of talks under ceasefire conditions, however, the conflict resumed in the summer of 2015 when the process fell apart.