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

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

Supporters of Xiyue Wang, the Princeton University graduate student who has been imprisoned in Iran for almost two years, will hold a rally at 7 PM on May 11 in front of the Frist Campus Center. The event is open to the public. Xiyue Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, will speak at the event, along with other family members and friends. A handful of elected officials will also give speeches. The event is organized by graduate students and members of the Princeton University community. Xiyu

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

We, the undersigned, are compelled to express our outrage at the arrest, conviction, and sentencing of Iranian professor Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been detained since April 2016 by the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was accused of espionage and, following a closed trial, sentenced to death on October 20, 2017. The 45-year-old professor, who taught at the European Master in Disaster Medicine (EMDM) in Italy—a joint master’s program of the Università degli Studi del Piemonte Or

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

A judge in Tehran has ordered the death penalty for Iranian disaster-medicine researcher Ahmadreza Djalali, according to his wife, Vida Mehrannia, and diplomatic sources in Italy. The 45-year-old professor who taught at the European Master in Disaster Medicine (EMDM) in Italy—a joint Master’s program of the Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel—was arrested in April 2016 on charges of “collaboration with a hostile government” while

The US Environmental Protection Agency has blocked three scheduled discussions of climate change by agency scientists at a conference on Monday in Rhode Island, according to reporting by the New York Times. The last-minute cancellation was reported Sunday, the day before the start of the State of the Narragansett Bay and its Watershed Workshop in Providence, Rhode Island, where scientists are to gather to discuss the health of Narragansett Bay. The conference’s hosting organi

It has been over six months since Santiago Guevara, a 65-year-old economist and professor who has taught at the University of Carabobo for the past 42 years, was arrested in Valencia, Venezuela. According to the local newspapers, Santiago Guevara has been held in the headquarters of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) in Caracas and has lost more than 60 pounds of his body weight. His health is deteriorating rapidly. The professor suffers from hype