On March 8 the Committee of Concerned Scientists sent a notice out to all of the invitees to its Annual Meeting that the Board decided, in light of the country's attempt to stem the spread of Covid-19, to cancel its Annual Meeting for 2020. ... Continue Reading>>
Our Work
CCS Mourns the Passing of Its Long-Time Honorary Board Member and Committed Human Rights Supporter, Louis Nirenberg
Louis Nirenberg, one of the greatest mathematicians of our time, and a long-time member of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, is dead at 94. New York Times Obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/science/louis-nirenberg-dead.html Nature Magazine Obituary: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00449-y ... Continue Reading>>
Conservationist Depicts Iranian Prison Conditions In Letters Sent to Media
Niloufar Bayani is a widely respected conservation scientist who works at the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation. She received a Master’s in conservation biology from Columbia University in 2012, and then worked for the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in Geneva before joining the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation in 2017. She and eight colleagues were arrested in January 2018 and accused of ... Continue Reading>>
Congress Investigating Targeting of Chinese-American Scientists by NIH and FBI
On February 20, Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep. Judy Chu began an investigation into concerns that Chinese-American scientists are being unfairly targeted in espionage investigations. Raskin, who chairs the Subcommittee on Civil Right and Civil Liberties in the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Chu, who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, sent letters to the National ... Continue Reading>>
Dr. Stella Nyanzi Released in Uganda
Dr. Stella Nyanzi, a medical anthropologist who had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for “insulting” Uganda’s President Museveni, has been released. A former Makerere University lecturer, Dr. Nyanzi was convicted in 2018 for violating Uganda’s Computer Misuse Act - posting offensive language directed at the President on-line. This conviction, a clear violation of her right to free expression, ... Continue Reading>>
Petition Launched in Support of Dr. Bülent Sik
On February 18, scientists and academics around the world initiated a petition calling for the conviction of Dr. Bülent Sik to be overturned. Dr. Sik, a food engineer who until 2016 worked with Turkey’s Ministry of Health while a professor at Akdeniz University, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for releasing findings of a study linking environmental factors and cancer cases. The petition ... Continue Reading>>
Two Academics at Hong Kong Universities Were Punished for Involvement in 2014 Demonstrations
Benny Tai Yiu-ting was sentenced in April to 16 months in prison but released in August pending appeal. The University of Hong Kong, where he is a law professor, is looking into the possibility of terminating his employment. Also, Shiu Ka-chun was terminated from his teaching position at Baptist University in Hong Kong where he was the Associate Director of the Centre for Youth Research and ... Continue Reading>>
Student Council President at Birzeit University Arrested, Not Charged
Israeli soldiers arrested Ms. Hassan on December 12th at her home. She has not been charged for any crime, but has been ordered held for three months on administration detention. ... Continue Reading>>
Australian-British Lecturer Describes Incarceration In Iran Through Series of Letters
Kylie Moore-Gilbert is an Australian-British lecturer on Islamic Studies at Melbourne University in Australia where she obtained her Ph.D. in 2017. She was arrested in Iran in September 2018 while conducting field research. She was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison on unknown charges that are rumored to be related to espionage. If true, she would be one of many ... Continue Reading>>
Tuna Altinel Acquitted of Charges at Final Hearing in Turkey
Tuna Altinel, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Lyon-1 University of France, has been acquitted of “membership in a terrorist organization” at his final hearing. Altinel had been found not guilty in a previous hearing, but when he went to inquire about the status of his passport he was re-arrested due to charges imposed by the prosecutor. No travel ban has been issued to Altinel, but his ... Continue Reading>>