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Dolunay Bulut
- Oct 25, 2018
- 2 min
Turkish Prosecutor Demands 7.5 Years for 32 Peace Academics
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
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Dolunay Bulut
- Oct 20, 2018
- 1 min
Turkey Reduced NASA Scientist's Sentence
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
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Dolunay Bulut
- Sep 20, 2018
- 3 min
Peace Academics on Trial Again
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
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Dolunay Bulut
- Sep 18, 2018
- 1 min
Hanifi Baris to be Released from Turkish Prison
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
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Dolunay Bulut
- Aug 30, 2018
- 1 min
Rights Violations Against Peace Academics in Turkey
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
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Dolunay Bulut
- Aug 17, 2018
- 1 min
NASA Scientist Sentenced to 7.5 Years in Prison in Turkey
Serkan Golge, a NASA researcher and an American-Turkish dual citizen of Turkish descent, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by Turkish authorities based on allegations of involvement in the attempted coup in July 2016. He was arrested due to an anonymous tip while visiting family in Antakya in June 2016 and accused of spying for the CIA and being a member of the Gulen movement, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkish authorities. The only eviden
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Dolunay Bulut
- Jul 22, 2018
- 1 min
Erdogan Tightens Grip on Higher Education Institutions
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a decree stripping much of the country’s Council of Higher Education's (YOK) supervisory power, giving himself the sole authority to appoint university rectors. Under the state of emergency rule, Erdogan had dissolved the election procedures of rectors in institutions of higher education. According to the presidential decree issued after the end of two-year state of emergency, the requirement for university rectors to have previou
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Dolunay Bulut
- Jul 13, 2018
- 1 min
Academic Purge in Turkey Continues
On July 8, 2018, the Turkish state issued the 10th statutory decree since the coup attempt in July 2016, which discharged another 18,632 civil servants from several state offices including ministries of Education, Internal Affairs, Justice, and Armed Forces. The dismissals included 199 academics, making it so that as of July 13, the number of academics who have lost their jobs reached to 6,081. The number of those who were reinstated, however, was only 174. 18 of 199 of the d
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Dolunay Bulut
- Apr 10, 2018
- 3 min
Turkey’s Jailed Students Need Our Attention
On March 19, 2018, a group of students from the Society for Islamic Research (BISAK) at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University opened a stand at the campus to distribute sweets (lokum/Turkish delight) to commemorate Turkish soldiers killed in Turkey’s capture of the northern Syrian town of Afrin. In response, a group of antiwar students staged a peaceful demonstration, carrying banners that read “No Delight for Invasion and Massacre,” and “The Palace Wants War, the People Demand Peac
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Dolunay Bulut
- Apr 10, 2018
- 2 min
Turkish Court Sentences Two Academics for Peace Petition
On April 5, 2018, a Turkish court sentenced two prominent Turkish academics to fifteen months in prison on charges of “disseminating propaganda for a terrorist organization” for signing the 2016 peace petition. Professor Zübeyde Füsun Üstel of Galatasaray University and Associate Professor Veli Polat of Istanbul University were among the 1,128 academics who signed the 2016 petition that called on the Turkish government to cease violence and comply with international law durin
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Dolunay Bulut
- Mar 28, 2018
- 2 min
Jailed Turkish Professor—I Got Used to Lynching
Sedat Laçiner, a renowned Turkish academic and political scientist who was arrested in the wake of a controversial military coup on July 15, 2016, has stated that “I respond to what is said about me, and I don’t run from either prosecution or debate. But the accusations must be a bit rational and fair. I got used to the lynching, but at least the accusations should make sense. Have a heart! I am also a human being.” The Turkish online news outlet T24 has published a letter se
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Dolunay Bulut
- Feb 24, 2018
- 4 min
Trial of Academics in Turkey—Yasemin Gülsüm Acar's Statement of Defense
We are publishing the statement of defense of Özyeğin University professor Yasemin Gülsüm Acar, who was tried at the Istanbul 32nd Heavy Penal Court in Çağlayan for having signed the Academics for Peace declaration, entitled, "We will not be a party to this crime." Like my colleagues who have found themselves here in the last weeks and who will continue to come here in the coming months, I am here because I tried to use my academic identity to voice a need for peace. I'm an a
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Dolunay Bulut
- Feb 23, 2018
- 1 min
Peace Academic Arrested in Turkey
Serdar Bascetin, another member of the Academics for Peace initiative, was arrested. His social media posts were allegedly evidence of terrorist activity. Başçetin was detained with three others during a home raid in Antalya on February 13. The seven-day legal detention period of the detainees was extended by the prosecutor despite that their depositions were completed. After this period, all four individuals were brought to the court, where Başçetin and Kutay Meric, an execu
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Dolunay Bulut
- Feb 18, 2018
- 1 min
Epidemiology Professor Arrested in Turkey for Demanding Peace
Onur Hamzaoglu, a professor of epidemiology and cospokesperson of the People's Democratic Congress (HDK), was detained with 16 others on February 9 due to warrants issued by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. According to the warrants, those arrested were suspected as members of the terrorist organization PKK/KCK based on their social media activity protesting Turkey’s ongoing war in Northern Syria (Operation Olive Branch). On February 16 Hamzaoglu was arrested on c
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Ebby Abramson
- Feb 8, 2018
- 1 min
Nasa Scientist Researching Mission to Mars Sentenced to 7.5 Years in Turkey
It has been over eighteen months since Serkan Golge, a 37-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent and physicist with NASA, was arrested in Turkey. On February 8, 2018, we learned that Golge was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on charges of involvement with the Gulen movement, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. Golge is a senior research scientist at NASA who has been studying the health effects of time spent in space on the human body. He has helped
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Dolunay Bulut
- Dec 10, 2017
- 2 min
Turkish Professor Visiting His Former Student Semih Özakça Suspended
On December 8, 2017, Irfan Mukul, an assistant professor at the University of Sinop, was suspended from the university for visiting his student Semih Özakça. In an interview with Bianet, Mukul stated that Semih is his student from the Faculty of Education. “I visited my student who is on hunger strike on Sunday. I told the investigators, too, is visiting my student a crime? It is not possible.” Özakça, 28, and Nuriye Gülmen, 35, went on a hunger strike in March 2017 in the co
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Dolunay Bulut
- Dec 4, 2017
- 1 min
Turkish Professor on 269-Day Hunger Strike Released from Jail
A Turkish academic on hunger strike for nearly nine months to protest her dismissal after last year’s failed coup has been released from jail. Nuriye Gulmen, 35, was sentenced to six years and three months in jail for being a member of the militant leftist DHKP-C group, deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey. However, the court granted the emaciated professor a conditional release, and she was freed from the hospital where she was in custody on December 1. Turkish authorit
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Ebby Abramson
- Nov 25, 2017
- 3 min
ESW Stands With Academics for Peace in Turkey—Urgent Call for Solidarity
In January 2016, 2,218 scholars from Turkey signed a petition titled “We will not be a party to this crime,” also known as the Peace Petition. The signatories (Academics for Peace) have been subjected to heavy pressure and persecution. Hundreds of the Turkish academics have faced criminal and disciplinary investigations, custody, imprisonment, and violent threats. Several academics have been dismissed or suspended, and some were forced to resign or leave the country. Many sig
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Dolunay Bulut
- Nov 19, 2017
- 2 min
Nuriye Gülmen is Now 37 Kg and at Point of No Return
Veli Saçılık, a friend of the Turkish professor Nuriye Gülmen who started a hunger strike in order to protest her dismissal under state of emergency decree-laws issued after a failed coup in Turkey last year, stated that Gülmen is now just 37 kg (81 lbs). Saçılık said to Artı Gerçek online news that, “According to the information we received from the hospital authorities, bedsores have increased, and the injuries are not being healed . . . It seems that she will never be able
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