US Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday that Turkey, once vaunted by Washington as a model of Islamic democracy, was setting a poor example for the region through intimidating media, curtailing internet freedom, and accusing academics of treason. "The more Turkey succeeds, the stronger the message sent to the entire Middle East and parts of the world who are only beginning to grapple with the notion of freedom," Biden said, flanked by members of Turkish civil society groups. "But when the media are intimidated or imprisoned for critical reporting, when internet freedom is curtailed and social media sites . . . are shut down and more than 1,000 academics are accused of treason simply by signing a petition, that’s not the kind of example that needs to be set." During the early years of then prime minister Tayyip Erdogan's rule, Turkey was cited by Washington as an example of a functioning Islamic democracy for the Middle East. Recently, however, reforms have faltered, and Erdogan, now president, has demonstrated a more authoritarian style. Last week, for instance, he denounced more than 1,000 signatories of a declaration that criticized Turkish military action in the Kurdish southeast as "dark, nefarious, and brutal." Security forces briefly detained 27 academics on accusations of terrorist propaganda, and dozens face investigation by their universities. The government says that the academics were held for promoting terrorism or for antistate activities, not their journalism. It denies intimidating media bosses, many of whose parent companies hold lucrative government contracts in other areas of industry. "If you do not have the ability to express your own opinion, to criticize policy, offer competing ideas without fear of intimidation or retribution, then your country is being robbed of opportunity," Biden said. #Turkey #News

Endangered Scholars Worldwide condemns the terrorist attack at Bacha Khan University in the city of Charsadda, Pakistan, in which armed militants killed at least 20 people and wounded many more. We call on Pakistani authorities to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice. The right to education for all must be firmly protected. Schools and educational facilities must be respected as safe and secure spaces all around the world. The ongoing, increasingly severe attacks against university students and faculty in Pakistan bring up grave concerns over the ability of scholars, intellectuals, students to work safely in the country's educational settings. The targeting of scholars harms the entire global educational community by undermining universities' abilities to meet their educational, research, and social responsibilities. #Statement

Chemistry professor Syed Hamid Hussain, 34, has been named as one of the victims of the violent attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, Pakistan. Two of his students spoke of how Hamid tried to save them by fighting off the militants. Suspected Taliban gunmen stormed the campus on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people and injuring 51. When security officials entered the university, a gun battle took place, lasting several hours. Four gunmen were killed. Zahoor Ahmed, a geology student, told AFP that Dr. Hamid told him not to leave the building when he first heard gun shots. “[Dr Hamid] was holding a pistol in his hand," Ahmed said. “Then I saw a bullet hit him. I saw two militants were firing. I ran inside and then managed to flee by jumping over the back wall.” Another student said they saw the professor fire at attackers with his gun. People have taken to Twitter to pay their respects to Hamid. One user said Pakistan has "lost an asset," while another called Hamid a "martyr of education." #News #Pakistan

After more than 18 months, Jason Rezaian was released from an Iranian prison as the result of a deal struck between the US and Iran. “I want people to know that physically I’m feeling good,” Rezaian told the Post editors on Monday. Rezaian described how he spent 49 days in solitary confinement. He got his exercise by walking around an 8-by-8-foot concrete courtyard for five hours every day. #News

Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and two other Americans safely left Iran as part of a prisoner-swap. They landed in Germany on Sunday. Rezaian's departed from the country after spending more than 500 days in detention. His release came as part of a prisoner exchange that also negotiated the release of three other Americans: former Marine Amir Hekmati, Christian preacher Saeed Abedini, and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari. Early Sunday, the Washington Post said that Rezaian was "now a free man" and had safely left Iran with his wife. "We are relieved that this 545-day nightmare for Jason and his family is finally over," the Post said. "After enduring such deplorable conditions and inhumane treatment, the top priority now must be Jason's health and well-being."

Turkish President Erdogan described Noam Chomsky, a scholar who, along with 1,128 Turkish and foreign academics from 89 universities, signed an open letter protesting Turkey's attacks on Kurdish areas, as being "in the dark" and displaying "colonialist mentality." In an email sent to the Guardian, Chomsky wrote, “Turkey blamed ISIS (for the recent attack in Istanbul), which Erdogan has been aiding in many ways, while also supporting the al-Nusra Front, which is hardly different. He then launched a tirade against those who condemn his crimes against Kurds, who happen to be the main ground force opposing Isis in both Syria and Iraq. Is there any need for further comment?” Chomsky also called on Turkish authorities to stop the massacre and end the siege of Kurdish towns, at the same time accusing Erdogan of waging a war against his own people. Erdogan reacted by saying, "Let our ambassador in the United States invite Chomsky, who has made statements about Turkey’s operations against the terrorist organization,” and by offering to “host” him in the Kurdish region. However, in his email, Chomsky stated, “If I decide to go to Turkey, it will not be on his invitation, but as frequently before at the invitation of the many courageous dissidents, including Kurds who have been under severe attack for many years.” Meanwhile, Turkish police have detained 12 of the academics who signed the peace declaration. #Turkey #News

Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post journalist imprisoned in Iran for more than a year, has been released along with three other dual-nationality prisoners as Tehran prepares to implement a historic nuclear agreement with Western leaders. The move is believed to be part of a prisoner swap with the US. The closed-door trial of Rezaian began in May when he appeared before a hardline judge on charges of espionage, collecting confidential information, and spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic. The 39-year-old, who holds dual Iranian-American citizenship, was arrested at his home in Tehran in July 2014 along with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is also a journalist, and two Iranian-American friends. The friends were released shortly after their arrest, while Salehi was released on bail in October and is facing a separate trial. The Post reporter was held on unspecified charges for more than seven months before appearing in court. He was kept incommunicado for most of his time in jail, with little access to his lawyers and family. Two of the other prisoners released with Rezaian are believed to be former marine Amir Hekmati and pastor Saeed Abedini. Hekmati was jailed in 2011. Iran does not recognize dual citizenship and treated Rezaian as an Iranian. Intelligence authorities in the country have a deep suspicion of dual citizens and have arrested a number in recent years. The country also has a history of jailing journalists working for the foreign press. Those previously jailed include Maziar Bahari, whose ordeal in prison was the subject of Rosewater, a film by US comedian Jon Stewart. The Post has repeatedly accused Iran of imposing “Kafkaesque restrictions” on the Rezaian case, which was presided over by Abolghassem Salavati, a judge notorious for issuing heavy sentences. Local and foreign media were denied access to the trial. The Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, described the trial as “the shameful acts of injustice” and said, “there is no justice in this system, not an ounce of it.” Many analysts believe Rezaian was caught up in a high-level feud between the administration of President Hassan Rouhani and its internal opponents. The reporter had been working in Iran with appropriate accreditation. His prolonged detention brought widespread international condemnation and much embarrassment for Rouhani, who has been trying to improve relations with the West since the landmark nuclear agreement was struck in July. After his election victory in 2013, the Post was the first international newspaper approached by Rouhani to publish an opinion piece in which he set out his global vision. Nevertheless, he remained largely quiet in defense of Rezaian. Profile Rezaian was born in Marin County, north of the San Francisco Bay area, three years before the 1979 Revolution in Iran. His mother, Mary, is American and his late father, Taghi, was an Iranian who had emigrated to the US two decades before the reporter's birth. After his arrest, he was interrogated and held without charges for five months. Rezaian and his family were prohibited from hiring a lawyer defend him for 9 months, and once engaged, his attorney was allowed only one pretrial meeting. Throughout the imprisonment, Rezaian was held either in solitary confinement or extreme isolation. He suffered through many untreated health issues and was severely depressed. Jason Rezaian is a graduate of The New School's Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. Endangered Scholars Worldwide, which traces its roots back to the founding of the New School for Social Research with the rescuing of threatened scholars from Nazi Europe, sees Jason as one of our own community. READ MORE Rezaian was accredited as a journalist by Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and had permission to operate in the country. He was always careful not to cross the red lines, his family have said, and his last article before being arrested was about baseball in Iran. He had, however, travelled to Vienna to cover the Iranian nuclear negotiations in previous months. #BreakingNews #News

Turkish authorities detained 14 scholars on Friday, accusing them of spreading “terrorism propaganda” and of insulting the state after they signed a petition denouncing the military’s campaign against Kurdish militants in Southeast Turkey. Twelve scholars from Kocaeli University in northwestern Turkey were detained in early-morning raids on their homes, the semiofficial news agency Anadolu reported. Arrest warrants were issued for nine others from the university, and by midafternoon, two of them had been detained. All 21 scholars were among the more than 1,000 academics from 90 Turkish universities who signed the public statement, “We Won’t Be a Party to This Crime,” that urged the government in Ankara, Turkey's capital, to end the “deliberate massacre” of Kurds caught in clashes between security forces and militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The petition angered President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who denounced the group—and foreign scholars who signed the document including the linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky—in a televised speech on Tuesday. Erdogan accused the signatories of “treason” and of forming a “fifth column” of foreign powers trying to undermine Turkey’s national security. “Unfortunately, these so-called academics claim that the state is carrying out a massacre,” Erdogan said in his speech, which came shortly after the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 10 German tourists in the historic heart of Istanbul. “Hey, you so-called intellectuals: You are dark people. You are not intellectuals.” Erdogan called on Chomsky and other scholars to visit southeastern Turkey to get a “true picture” of the events taking place there. “They should see with their eyes whether the problem is a violation by the state or the hijacking of our citizens’ rights and freedoms by the terrorist organization,” he said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. On Thursday, the government formally began an investigation of the scholars. If convicted, the academics could face one to five years in jail. The detentions have deepened concerns over freedom of expression in Turkey under Erdogan’s leadership, and analysts say that the latest crackdown on academics is intended to muzzle debate and to curb academic freedoms. “The campaign against academics this week certainly targets a new group and has very serious consequences for academic freedom in Turkey, as well as free speech,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, a senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There are concerns for the physical safety of some academics in provincial universities after being targeted in such a way.” The petition has even drawn criticism from a notorious organized-crime boss, Sedat Peker, who is known for his nationalist viewpoints. “We will spill your blood, and we will take shower with your blood,” he said in a statement on his website. Several scholars, reached by telephone on Friday, declined to comment on the detentions for fear of reprisal. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a political scientist and former university professor, also lashed out at the scholars who signed the petition. “Being an intellectual and defending democracy is first of all possible by defending democratic methods,” Mr. Davutoglu said. “Why are you aligning behind this terrorist organization?” The United States ambassador to Turkey, John R. Bass, criticized the arrests, saying they would have a “chilling effect on legitimate political discourse” about the violence in southeastern Turkey. “In democratic societies, it is imperative that citizens have the opportunity to express their views, even controversial or unpopular ones,” Bass said in a statement on Twitter. “Expressions of concern about violence do not equal support for terrorism. Criticism of government does not equal treason.” Violence has surged in Turkey’s volatile southeast since the renewal of a decades-old conflict between Kurdish militants and the Turkish state, a conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives. The Turkish military started a major counterinsurgency campaign last month, imposing round-the-clock curfews in Kurdish areas to drive militants out of their strongholds. Rights groups say that nearly 200 civilians have been killed in the violence. Source: NEW YORK TIMES #Turkey #News

Phyoe Phyoe Aung, a student protestor who is being hospitalized at Yangon General Hospital, was charged on Monday for additional crimes under Section 18 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law by the Lanmadaw Township Police Force. He was also charged with accounts under Section 447 and Section 18 of the same law by the Kamaryut Township Police Force. Phyoe Phyoe Aung is a member of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions and is being tried for participating in the November 2014 protest against the National Education Law that occurred in Yangon. “We marched from Lanmadaw to downtown. There were about 150 of us, including Ko Nandar Sitt Aung," Min Thwe Thit said. "The Lanmadaw Township police charged us under section 18. The Kamaryut Township police charged us under sections 18 and 447 because we passed through Kamaryut and broke into Yangon University.” #News

The trial of Chinese lawyer Pu Zhiqiang drew condemnation from human rights groups and foreign diplomats on Monday. Pu joins a long list of civil society activists, free-speech advocates, feminists, and intellectuals who have been detained, arrested, or sent to prison in China over the recent years as Communist Party authorities have cracked down on acts of dissent. Authorities have leveled various charges at the activists such as advocating separatism, inciting subversion of state power, gathering a crowd to disrupt public order, and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Here is a look at some of the most prominent figures currently behind bars: Liu Xiaobo A poet, literary critic, and former professor who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 for "inciting subversion of state power” after coauthoring a controversial manifesto called Charter 08 that called for multiparty elections and democratic reform in China. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but was forbidden from attending the ceremony by authorities. China reacted to the Nobel Prize with fury, imposing a virtual news blackout on Liu’s selection. Limited mentions in state-run media called him "an incarcerated Chinese criminal" and said the prize had been "degraded into a political tool that serves an antiChina purpose.” The award soured relations between Norway and China. More than 300 people, including some of China's top intellectuals, signed Charter 08. It was made public in December 2008. Liu was a visiting scholar at Columbia University when the democracy movement began sweeping China in 1989. He rushed home to participate. After the demonstrations were crushed, he was branded as subversive and served 18 months behind bars. From then on, he faced obstacles to publishing or lecturing, but he stayed in China and did not give up. In 1995, he was placed under house arrest, then ordered to a labor camp for "reeducation," from which he was released in 1999. Shortly before going to prison a decade later, where he remains today, Liu wrote: "Simply for expressing divergent political views and taking part in a peaceful and democratic movement, a teacher lost his podium, a writer lost the right to publish and a public intellectual lost the chance to speak publicly. This was a sad thing, both for myself as an individual and, after three decades of reform and opening, for China." Ilham Tohti Tohti, a Beijing economics professor and China’s most prominent critic of government policies toward the nation’s Uighur ethnic minority, was convicted on charges of separatism in September 2014 and sentenced to life in prison. The court ordered complete seizure of his assets. The state-controlled New China News Agency said Tohti had used his website, Uighur Online, to advocate for Xinjiang’s separation from China, as well as to encourage other Uighurs toward violence. Tohti had “bewitched and coerced young ethnic students to work for the website and built a criminal syndicate,” the agency said. His website has been banned. Tohti denied the charges, saying he never associated with any terrorist organizations or foreign groups and “relied only on pen and paper to diplomatically request” human and legal rights for Uighurs. International human rights groups and foreign governments, including the United States, described the case as the persecution of a moderate intellectual who sought to foster dialogue between Uighurs and China’s Han ethnic majority. One of Tohti’s lawyers, Liu Xiaoyuan, stated that he was unable to call people to speak in Tohti’s defense. “Before Ilham Tohti’s trial, we had applied to the court to summon more than a dozen witnesses, but the court refused to send out the orders,” he said. In 2013 Tohti was intercepted by security officials en route to the Beijing airport and prevented from traveling to take up a post as a visiting scholar at Indiana University. Tohti was the 2014 recipient of the prestigious PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, though his daughter had to receive the award in Tohti's stead. Xu Zhiyong Legal advocate Xu was sentenced in January 2014 to four years in prison after being convicted by a Beijing court of "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order." The Xu case was particularly disheartening to human rights activists because of his attempts to work within the system. He embraced causes the Communist Party authorities ostensibly support—equal education for migrant workers and regulations requiring government officials to disclose their assets. Xu earned his doctorate in law at prestigious Peking University and was elected to the local People’s Congress, the representative assembly. In 2009, he founded the New Citizens Movement, designed to push for rule of law, upholding the rights enshrined in the Chinese Constitution. Xu was charged with organizing a demonstration at the Education Ministry at which officials said people "unfurled banners, made a racket, and defied and obstructed public security police officers from enforcing the law, creating serious chaos at that location." The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court rejected the 68 witnesses Xu’s defense team tried to present. "This destroys the last remaining dignity of the Chinese legal system," Xu told the court at his sentencing, according to his lawyer, Zhang Qingfang. Guo Feixiong Guo, one of southern China’s most prominent activists, was sentenced in November to six years in prison for participating in anticensorship and protransparency protests. The 49-year-old was convicted by the Tianhe District People’s Court in the city of Guangzhou for “assembling a crowd to disrupt public order” and “picking quarrels and provoking troubles.” Guo—whose birth name is Yang Maodong— was detained in August 2013 after he joined in an anticensorship protest at the Guangzhou headquarters of the newspaper Southern Weekly. The publication had recently grappled with censorship over an outspoken editorial, and several of its journalists were on strike. Guo’s lawyer, Zhang Lei, said Guo was also convicted for organizing protransparency demonstrations in eight cities across China. Zhang said Guo maintains his innocence and planned to appeal. “Whatever he did—including what he did in front of the [Southern Weekly]—was just him exercising his freedom of speech, a normal citizen's right,” Zhang told the Los Angeles Times. “And when he went around pushing officials to declare their assets, he didn’t cause any social disorder—that was also a citizen's right.” Guo was imprisoned for more than 800 days before his sentence was announced; his trial was held in November 2014. Zhang said Guo was held in a cramped cell with no natural light, causing him severe physical and psychological distress. On the same day that Guo was sentenced, two other activists who took part in the Southern Weekly protests were also handed prison terms. Sun Desheng was given two and a half years in prison, and Liu Yuandong was given three years. Both were convicted of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” *The original article can be found here. #China #News

On December 8, 2008, Liu was arrested, after which he was sentenced to eleven years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” through his dissident writing and activities. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, and his wife was put under house arrest by Chinese authorities in response. She continues to be held without trial today. Liu is the only Nobel Peace Prize winner currently in jail. Today, International PEN released a statement signed by Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and others calling for Liu Xiaobo’s release. “In any other country, Liu Xiaobo would be considered a national treasure and honored,” said Salil Tripathi, chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee. “In China, however, he remains in jail. His crime, if it can be called a crime, is to demand the freedoms for all Chinese that are enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights but which the Chinese state continues to deny him and many others. China wants to be considered a major international power. To meet those aspirations it must release him, other writers and political prisoners.” #LiuXiaobo #News

Noam Chomsky, Jerome A. Cohen, Juan Cole,Simon Critchley, and Wendy Doniger, et al.* To the Iranian authorities: We, the undersigned, are compelled to express our outrage at the arrest and conviction of the Iranian-American journalist Jason Rezaian, who has been detained since July 2014 by the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was accused of espionage and, following a closed trial, was convicted. He now faces a sentence of ten to twenty years in prison. Mr. Rezaian, a reporter for The Washington Post, is known as a man of peace. The possibility that he had any direct or indirect access to classified information has been refuted by his defense attorney, who has also reported that, in a clear denial of due process, she was not permitted to respond orally to the prosecution in court. Jason Rezaian’s detention is a flagrant and unjust violation of the freedom, security, and safety of a journalist who is a victim—arrested without cause, held for months in solitary confinement and without access to a lawyer, subjected to physical mistreatment and psychological abuse, and now convicted without basis. He has already spent more than fifteen months in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, more than three times as long as any other Western journalist. We strongly deplore and condemn the detention, persecution, and conviction of Jason Rezaian, and call upon all international organizations, academic and professional associations, and other groups and individuals devoted to the promotion and defense of human rights to strongly protest and condemn this arbitrary verdict, to call for his immediate and unconditional release, and to urge the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respect, guarantee, and implement the provisions and principles of human rights as specified in international conventions and treaties to which Iran has long been a signatory. For more information on Mr. Rezaian, we ask you to visit the New School’s Endangered Scholars Worldwide website at bit.do/Jason_Rezaian. *Noam Chomsky, Jerome Cohen, Juan Cole, Simon Critchley, Wendy Doniger, Rebecca Goldstein, Eva Hoffman, Ira Katznelson, Baroness Helena Kennedy, Bob Kerrey, Arien Mack, Avishai Margalit, Victor Navasky, Aryeh Neier, Steven Pinker, Robert Pinsky, Ken Roth, Gayatri Spivak, Michael Walzer, and Marina Warner #Statement