CELAL CAHIT AGAR AND STEFFEN BÖHM - Turkey’s Academics Pay Heavy Price for Resisting Erdoğan’s Militarised Politics
While the EU and the US have turned a blind eye to the
Turkish government’s brutal clampdown in Kurdish regions, Turkish academics who
have spoken out about the regime’s increasingly dictatorial policies have faced
punishment and even imprisonment. A petition
published in early January by the Academicians for Peace initiative,
criticising the Turkish state’s political and military attacks against the
Kurdish people, raised a red flag with its signatories stating: “We will not be
a party to this crime.” They wrote:
The Turkish state has effectively condemned its citizens in
Sur, Silvan, Nusaybin, Cizre, Silopi, and many other towns and neighborhoods in
the Kurdish provinces to hunger through its use of curfews that have been
ongoing for weeks. It has attacked these settlements with heavy weapons and
equipment that would only be mobilized in wartime. As a result, the right to
life, liberty, and security, and in particular the prohibition of torture and
ill-treatment protected by the constitution and international conventions have
been violated.
In response, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan immediately demanded that all institutions in Turkey
take action: “Everyone who benefits from this state but is now an enemy of the
state must be punished without further delay.”
Academics targeted: Following this, Turkish federal prosecutors have investigated 1,128 of the signatories with 33 academics from three Turkish universities in Bolu,
Kocaeli and Bursa being detained because of their alleged propaganda for a
terrorist organisation and insulting the Turkish nation, state, government and
institutions.
Turkey’s top higher education body, the Higher Education
Board (YÖK), has called for university administrators to impose
disciplinary sanctions against the academics. Subsequently, 109 academics from 42 Turkish universities were
subjected to dismissal, discharge, suspension, termination and forced
resignation.
A government-backed counter-petition, Academics Against Terror, has also been organised. The Grey
Wolves, also known as Idealist Hearts, a formal youth organisation of the
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the Turkish parliament, has even marked the office doors of signatories and left
written threats.
Despite this, immediately after the government’s response,
the number of academics participating in the campaign increased
from 1,128 to 4,491. There has also been a public
reaction against the government’s tactics. Within just two weeks, independent petition campaigns organised by a variety
of civic and professional organisations have collected more than 60,000
signatories, and supporting statements have been released by 65 organisations
that have millions of members across the country.
The original petition has also created much-needed international
solidarity with more than 60 international institutions,
organisations, leading academics and politicians issuing messages of support
and ten international petition campaigns being organised worldwide.
The recent clampdown on academics characterises the scope of the new “counterterrorism” strategy of the Turkish
state. This “new” doctrine is again promoting a military solution to the
Kurdish question by concentrating state violence against the Kurds and supporters
of Kurdish rights… read more:
