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A Petition in Support of Turkish Academics Facing Job Loss and Arrest

May 9, 2016

Please support Turkish academics who have been terminated from their positions and arrested for signing a petition to encourage a peaceful handling of the Kurdish population.

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CCS Turkish Archive

Hundreds of Turkish academics face prison terms and expulsion from their universities for exercising their freedom of speech. We appeal to academics of all countries to stand in solidarity with our Turkish colleagues and sign the petition below.

To:
The Turkish Ministry of Justice
Turkish Council of Higher Education

In January 2016 an estimated number of 2000 Turkish academics from more than 90 Turkish Universities signed a petition criticizing the Turkish military for the operations that resulted in civilian deaths among the Kurdish population in the southeast of the country. Some of the signees were arrested, many have been investigated and dismissed from their university positions in violation of Article 26 of the Turkish Constitution that establishes Freedom of Expression for Turkish citizens.

The Turkish Ministry of Justice is currently deciding whether to bring charges against the academics for “denigrating Turkishness” under article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. Hundreds of Turkish academics may face prison terms and permanent expulsion from their universities.

We, the undersigned, demand that the Turkish Ministry of Justice drops all charges against the Turkish academics that exercised their freedom of expression granted by the Turkish Constitution. We demand that the Turkish Council of Higher Education instruct university administrators to cancel all investigations and reinstate all faculty members that have been suspended or dismissed.

cc: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey

Please sign your name below to show solidarity and support with the Turkish academics at hand.

[emailpetition id=”1″]

[signaturelist id=”1″]

Filed Under: Petitions, Turkey Tagged With: Academics, Justice and Development Party (Turkey), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey

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Joel L. Lebowitz, Rutgers University

Walter Reich, George Washington University

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Alexander Greer, Brooklyn College

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Myles Axton, Chief Editor, Genetics and Genomics Next

David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology*

Alan J. Bard, University of Texas

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James Langer, University of California, Santa Barbara

Peter Lax, New York University

Giorgio Parisi, Roma I University La Sapienza

John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto*

Stuart Rice, University of Chicago

Sir Richard J. Roberts, New England Biolabs*

Maxine Singer, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University

Myrna Weissman, Columbia University

Former Honorary Board Members

Jacob Bigeleisen (deceased), SUNY, Stony Brook

Raoul Bott (deseased) Harvard University

Owen Chamberlain (deceased), University of California, Berkeley

Stanley Deser (deceased), Brandeis University

Edward Gerjuoy (deceased), University of Pittsburgh

Pierre Hohenberg (deceased), New York University

Walter Kohn (deceased), University of California, Santa Barbara*

Louis Nirenberg (deceased), New York University

Marshall Nirenberg (deceased), National Institutes of Health*

Myriam Sarachick (deceased), City College of New York

Harold Scheraga (deceased), Cornell University

Sylvan Schweber (deceased), Brandeis University

Steven Weinberg (deceased), University of Texas, Austin*

Rosalyn S. Yalow (deceased), Mount Sinai School of Medicine*

* Nobel laureate

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