Updated June 25, 2020 Endangered Scholars Worldwide (ESW) joins other human rights organizations in calling on the Emirati government, amid the global threat posed by COVID-19, to release the Emirati Professor and economist Nasser bin Ghaith. Though UAE released a number of prisoners in early March 2020, imprisoned scholars and students—many of whom are older and suffer from underlying medical conditions—were excluded from the decrees. We urge the Emirati Government to relea

Specific details are emerging about an alarming number of university professors within China’s Uyghur minority who have been imprisoned or have forcibly disappeared since April 2017 as part of a major government crackdown on Uyghurs. According to a new report released this week by Uyghur Human Rights Project (URHP), the Chinese government has interned, imprisoned, or forcibly disappeared at least 338 intellectuals, among them “an alarming 61 university professors” and some 96

It has been over 30 months since Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish citizen and a scholar of disaster medicine was arrested in Iran. On October 19, 2018, Djalali underwent an operation in Tehran’s Taleghani Hospital on October 17. This operation took place after Djalali suffered a month of severe pain and the denial of medical treatment. The 45-year-old professor, who taught at the European Master in Disaster Medicine (EMDM) in Italy—a joint master’s program of the Univers

On October 1, 2018, Jarosław Gowin, the Polish Minister of Science and Education, signed a new law known as the Constitution for Science (Konstytucja dla Nauki), which declares that ethnology and anthropology are no longer independent disciplines. The new law places the disciplines into a new field of scientific inquiry: the study of culture and religion. The attack on anthropology is part of a broader attempt to reform Polish academia in which the democratically elected univ

Budapest's Central European University (CEU), which has fought for 20 months to secure its continued presence in the Hungarian capital, is being pushed out of the country in an “arbitrary eviction” that violates academic freedom. CEU confirmed plans to open a new campus in Austria. CEU’s legal status has been in limbo for more than a year since changes were made to a higher education law, done, as critics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government say, to deliberat

As concerned scholars who study China, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Central Asia, and other related regions of the world, we issue this statement to highlight our concerns and to call the international community to action in relation to the mass human rights abuses and deliberate attacks on indigenous cultures presently taking place in China’s XUAR. The signatories to this statement are united in viewing the present situation in the region of China as one of

On November 16, 2018 Turkish authorities arrested 13 people, including two academics from Bogazici and Bilgi universities and a group of civil society representatives, for their alleged involvement in the organization and continuation of the 2013 Gezi Park protests. Professors Betül Tanbay, an Academic for Peach signatory from the Department of Mathematics at Boğaziçi University, and Turgut Tarhanlı, dean of the faculty of law at İstanbul Bilgi University, have been released

Reports claim that police officers and military have unleashed a full-scale operation in more than 20 public universities in Brazil as a result of the campaign and election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. The measures, related for the most part to political advertising control, have been taken in institutions of higher education in several states and have triggered a reaction from the academic community and public interest organizations. On November 1, 2018 more than 1

On October 25, 2018 the Board of Trustees of Central European University (CEU) announced that it will move most of its teaching to Vienna if the government of Hungary fails to remove the legal obstacles to its academic freedom. Michael Ignatieff, the President of CEU, announced that the university would stop admitting students in Budapest after failing to resolve a dispute with the government over a new law that appeared to require CEU to open a branch in the United States. C

The trials of academics who have been charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" after signing the Academics for Peace declaration "We will not be a party to this crime" continued in Istanbul Caglayan Courthouse on October 17. 48 academics had their hearings at five separate courts. At the 33rd Heavy Penal Court, the Prosecutor's Office announced its opinion as to the accusations for 27 academics, whose cases had been combined, and at the 37th Heavy Penal Cour

In February 2018 Serkan Golge, a NASA researcher who holds dual Turkish-American citizenship, was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison by Turkish authorities due to his alleged involvement in the attempted coup in July 2016, as well as to his links to the Gulen movement. Following the announcement of the verdict earlier this year, Golge had an appeal hearing on September 19, during which the Turkish Court of Appeals rejected Golge's release but reduced his senten

In the latest wave of oppression against Baha’i students in Iran, Anahita Horr, an undergraduate at the School of Architecture at Rasam Institute of Higher Education in Karaj, has been expelled from her university and barred from continuing her education because she is a Baha’i. Last month, Nikan Shaydansheidi, a Baha’i student majoring in Metallurgy at the University of Tehran, was similarly expelled from his university and banned from pursuing further education for refusing

At least five ethnic Uyghur professors from Xinjiang University in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are being held in political “re-education camps,” according to one of their former colleagues. Qutluq Almas, a former lecturer at Xinjiang University who lives in exile in the US, recently posted a message on social media saying that sources inside the region had confirmed to him that literature professors Abdukerim Rahman, Rahile Dawut, Azat Sultan, and Gheyretjan

On January 10, 2016, 1,128 academics published a declaration titled “We will not be party to this crime” on behalf of the Academics for Peace initiative protesting state violence against the Kurdish population in southeast Turkey. With the participation of more signatories, the number of academics involved reached 2,212. This declaration led President Erdogan to demand that the Higher Education Council (YOK) take immediate action against these “pseudo intellectuals.” Followin

Hanifi Baris, an Aberdeen University graduate who has been in Turkish jail since July 4, 2018, was released on probation by the court on September 18, 2018. Baris, who previously practiced law for several years in Turkey and specializes in political theory, uploaded a number of articles denouncing President Erdogan toward the end of June when the Turkish leader secured victory in a national election. According to Scotland-based The Press and Journal, Baris was then arrested b

On September 12, 2018 Endangered Scholars Worldwide transmitted a letter of appeal to the Iranian Government and the US Department of State regarding the ongoing detention, persecution, and conviction of XiYue Wang, a 37-year-old United States citizen of Chinese descent. Wang was sentenced to 10 years in prison while researching Iran's Qajar dynasty for his Princeton University PhD and has been detained since August 2016 by the Islamic Republic of Iran on accusation of “archi

An education program aimed at giving asylum seekers and refugees in Hungary a new start is the first casualty of the government’s most recent anti immigrant measures. This week, the Central European University (CEU) suspended its award-winning Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) program for asylum seekers and refugees, just days after a 25 percent tax on any activity supporting immigration kicked in. The program offered a free academic nondegree course for asylum seekers and ref

On September 5, 2018 Endangered Scholars Worldwide learned that a University of Tehran photography student was sentenced to seven years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. Parisa Rafiei, 21, was arrested on February 25, 2018 by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry for allegedly attending protests that swept through Tehran and other Iranian cities in December 2017 and January 2018. She was later accused of “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda again

Since the 2016 public declaration of the Peace letter that demanded an end to the Turkish state's violence against its Kurdish population, Academics for Peace have faced several reactions from the state, the law, the universities at which they work, and the Higher Education Council, which currently functions directly under the Office of Presidency. According to a report prepared by the Academics for Peace, the number of Turkish academics who lost their job due to their associ

On August 29, 2018 Endangered Scholars Worldwide learned that Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba, professor and human rights defender, has been denied medical treatment for the second time in the recent months of his detention. Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba, 51, is serving a life sentence at the Nagpur Central Jail for his alleged links to Mao. Saibaba was accused of attempting to overthrow the government, but in reality his arrest and sentence were related to his peaceful human rights and