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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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