Remark from Freedom for Academia (FfA): This is a letter (sic) we received from one of our (verified) followers; an academic who would like to remain anonymous. He states that he knows the imprisoned Prof. Ibrahim Cerrah (Criminology) and HESA – an initiative that Prof. Cerrah established in Turkey, and wanted to share his views on [...]
Turkish police on Friday detained 22 former and current academics and staff members at İstanbul-based Marmara University as part of an investigation into the Gülen group, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. According to the report the Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office has issued detention warrants for 42 academics and staff at the university on accusations [...]
The University of Oslo (UIO) has granted the 2017 Human Rights Award to Turkish academic and activist Professor İştar Gözaydın for her efforts towards freedoms and human rights in Turkey. Professor Gözaydın, who spent some four months in prison after last year’s coup attempt in Turkey, told UIO’s Uniforma newspaper that she was honored by the [...]
Mehmet Altan, an economy professor and a columnist known for his liberal views, is in the 419th day of his arrest.
Date: October 19, 2017 Type: Imprisonment / Prosecution Status: Verified New/Ongoing: Ongoing Incident Region/Sub-region: Country or Territory: Institution: Afyon Kocatepe University On October 19, 2017, a Turkish court sentenced Mehmet Ünlü, a former professor of medicine at Afyon Kocatepe University, to 12 years in prison, based on alleged connections with Fethullah Gülen, a cleric who authorities claim [...]
Turkey’s president was unwise to evoke Animal Farm when his attack on academics has eerie echoes of George Orwell’s novel, says Umut Özkirımli It was one of those awkward moments. “In Animal Farm”, said Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in his address to the parliamentary group of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) earlier this [...]
Today, throughout the world, there are increasing threats to academic freedom – from authoritarian regimes and in regions at war or under occupation, but also by intolerant state and non-state actors. Academic freedom is also increasingly compromised within the academy itself by profit-maximisation models and audit cultures. How can we safeguard academic freedom and the [...]
Freedom for Academia (FfA) olarak, özellikle Türkiye’deki akademisyenlerin çektikleri sıkıntıları ve bu sıkıntıların yol açtığı problemleri dünya kamuoyuna ve akademik çevrelere duyurmak istiyoruz. Her yıl başında Türkiye’deki akademisyenlerin uluslararası dergilerde yayınladıkları makale sayılarını belgeleyen bir raporun dışında, akademisyenlere uygulanan (toplu ya da bireysel) baskıların Türkiye’ye verdiği sosyolojik, psikolojik ve bilimsel arenadaki etkilerini belgeleyen raporlar yayınlamak [...]
Six Fellowships for Scholars from Turkey for 24 months in Berlin or Essen to join the Academy in Exile. Application deadline: November 15, 2017 The Institute of Turkish Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien and the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI) invite scholars from or in Turkey to join the ACADEMY [...]
In fact, I thought about how I could start this article many times. I wrote it then deleted repeatedly, and I wrote it again; I have read what I wrote again and again and re-imagined what I lived in bewilderment. Every moment of what I went through is still in my memory. While I was [...]