Academics for Peace – A Case Study

https://afp.hypotheses.org

  • Solidarité avec les universitaires turcs dont les procès s’ouvrent mardi 5 décembre

    Parmi les soutiens possibles (document intitulé What do do) :
    1. Partager l’appel à solidarité ; montrer votre solidarité en suivant les procès et en les commentant sur vos réseaux sociaux, ou en écrivant des articles de blogs ou de journaux sur le sujet. Des informations sont disponibles ici : https://barisicinakademisyenler.net or http://mesana.org/pdf/Turkey20171017.pdf
    2. Contacter bakuluslararasi@gmail.com si vous souhaitez assister aux procès en tant qu’observateur, ou écrivez à une association des droits de l’homme pour qu’elle envoie un délégué.
    3. Signer la pétition https://academicboycottofturkey.wordpress.com/petition pour soutenir le boycott des universités complices en Turquie ;
    4. Informer vos organisations professionnelles ou le sénat de votre université pour qu’elles prennent acte contre les institutions complices telle le Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK ; www.tubitak.gov.tr/en) ;
    5. Soutenir financièrement les enseignants-chercheurs démis de leurs fonctions en faisant un don au syndicat qui les soutient, ici https://www.youcaring.com/academicsforpeaceinturkey-763983

    N’hésitez pas à faire circuler dans vos réseaux universitaires, syndicaux, et militants.

    #solidarité #résistance #Turquie #université #purge #coup #universitaires_pour_la_paix #procès

    @isskein : je vais essayer de mettre sur ce fil ce que je trouve sur cet horrible procès

    • 147 universitaires au tribunal d’Erdogan

      Ils comparaissent à partir de ce mardi pour avoir signé une pétition réclamant la paix au Kurdistan turc. Les purges du président continuent.

      Ce mardi débute à Istanbul les procès de près de 150 universitaires turcs, accusés de « propagande terroriste », pour avoir signé une pétition appelant à la paix. Ces derniers mois, leur pays semble sorti des radars médiatiques européens. Comme s’il existait une lassitude face à la répétition, la répression interminable, cette purge sans fin. Dans ce silence relatif, la dérive autocratique se poursuit pourtant, le pays s’enfonce. Et ces procès de chercheurs illustrent bien la paranoïa, l’arbitraire, dans lesquels se débattent désormais les démocrates turcs.

      https://lesjours.fr/obsessions/la-bascule/ep21-proces-universitaires

    • Blog dédié au procès:
      Academics for Peace - A Case Study. Documenting and Contextualizing the Instrumentalization of the Law in Turkey

      The law is usually associated as antagonistic to despotism, thought of as a source of freedom. But events in Turkey and other countries have shown how is the law instrumentalised in order to suppress academic freedom. This blog documents judicial proceedings against the Academics for Peace as an example to study a phenomenon that can be witnessed all over the globe.

      At the end of 2015, the predominantly Kurdish regions of Turkey entered an intensifying spiral of violence. Curfews were enforced in different cities and districts lasting for days, weeks and even months. Entire neighbourhoods were razed to the ground. People were left homeless, many lost their lives. In the face of these developments, 1128 academics decided not to remain silent and issued a statement titled “We will not be a party to this crime!”. It called on the government and the security forces to abide by domestic and international law and to return to the peace process that had been interrupted after the national elections of June 7, 2015. After the petition was made public, the Academics for Peace were specifically targeted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and subsequently turned into objects of hatred and defamation in the media. Since then, they have been attacked and threatened and became subject to administrative and criminal investigations. Some were arrested and kept in prison for more than one month. Hundreds of them have been dismissed from their positions by order of the Council of Education and university administrations. Under the state of emergency declared after the coup attempt of July 15, 2016, hundreds of Academics for Peace were removed from universities and banned from public service. Their passports have been invalidated hindering these academics from travelling abroad. In December 2017, judicial proceedings begin against the signatories, on the charge of “propaganda for a terrorist organization.”

      This blog is curated by Academics for Peace Germany e.V. Its aim is, on the one hand, to create an archive of factual and up-to-date information on the ongoing developments that researchers, journalists and others with an interest in the topic can rely on. On the other hand, this blog will provide contextualization and analysis from a variety of different disciplines and theoretic approaches, in preparation of a planned research network on the instrumentalization of law for the suppression of academic freedom in Turkey and elsewhere.


      https://afp.hypotheses.org

    • A Commentary on the Indictment against Academics for Peace

      The following text consists of a summary of the body of the Bill of Indictment with relevant commentaries in the footnotes. Although the penal case against the Academics for Peace petition has been filed on an individual basis regarding the signatories, each case shares a uniform Bill of Indictment [1]. Several Assize Courts in Istanbul have been appointed as the court-on-duty for the cases—each of them using this uniform Bill of Indictment as the basis of the criminal process. You can also read this commentary as a PDF.

      https://afp.hypotheses.org/59

    • INFORMATION NOTE ON THE ONGOING CRIMINAL PROCEEDINS AND RECENT RULLINGS AGAINST ACADEMICS FOR PEACE IN TURKEY. CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

      The criminal proceedings against several hundreds of academics in Turkey who signed a petition for peace (Academics for Peace) continue in Istanbul. They are individually sued in various Assize Courts. Some cases are recently concluded, the courts of first instances found the academics guilty for “carrying out terrorist propaganda” and sentenced them to 15 months of prison. We are currently waiting the decision of the Court of Appeal.
      We want to highlight these rulings against the signatories and request for urgent international support from our European colleagues.
      In a petition made public in January 2016 , more than two thousand academics and researchers from Turkey, supported by several hundred international academics—called on the Turkish government to abide by domestic and international law and to return to the peace process that had been interrupted in July 2015. After the petition was made public, the signatories were specifically targeted by President Erdoğan and subsequently attacked, threatened and became subject to administrative and criminal investigations. Some were arrested and kept in prison. In October 2017, some signatories of the petition, mostly the ones who are or were working at the universities in Istanbul, started to receive subpoenas, summoning them to the court with an accusation of carrying out terrorist propaganda.
      As of April 30, 2018, more than 260 signatories are individually sued in various Assize Courts of Istanbul. They are separately tried according to hundreds of copy-pasted indictments with an identical content. There is also one group case against four signatories who read a second press statement of Academics for Peace on March 10, 2016. This statement condemned the persecution of signatory academics and affirmed signatories’ commitment to the wording of the petition of January 2016. The four signatories are arrested and were held in pre-trial detention for 40 days.
      There are 2212 signatories of the petition, only around 300 of them have been sued so far. Furthermore 386 signatories have been officially listed as persons affiliated to terrorist organisations in the state of emergency decree-laws, dismissed from their positions, banned from public service for life and had their passports cancelled. But there is only a limited overlapping between the “sued signatories” and the “decreed signatories”.
      The indictment included no attestations that are based on factual evidences, was full of inconsistencies and even manipulated the facts by altering the translated versions of the petition . Against this arbitrariness, the signatories have defended themselves with emphasizing their responsibility as academics that instigates them not to remain silent against historical occurrences. As researchers, lecturers and scientists from numerous fields, they have all underlined their responsibility as a point of intersection, which made them come together through the demand for peace.
      The differences between the qualifications of the “crime” committed by the signatories by different courts demonstrate also arbitrariness of the judicial proceedings. The individual cases against the signatories are engaged with the charge of carrying out terrorist propaganda. The indictment in the group case against the four academics also, initially accused them under Article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Act . However, at the first hearing on April 22, 2016, the Public Prosecutor announced that he considered a different qualification for the “crime” committed and intended to launch a new investigation under Article 301 of the Penal Code. That article prohibits “degrading the Turkish Nation and the State of the Republic of Turkey and the organs and institutions of the State.” The Prosecutor requested the Court to stop the proceedings under Article 7/2 pending the required permission by the Minister of Justice for an investigation on charges under Article 301. The awaited decision by the Ministry of Justice in relation to the request for permission for an investigation under Article 301 of the Penal Code has reached the Court in November 2017.
      In order to define an act as propaganda for a terrorist organization under Article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Act, there must be an act having the characteristics of propaganda, which carried out in such a way that legitimizes or praises the coercive, violent and threatening actions of terrorist organizations or encourages the employment of these methods. In the Academics for Peace’s petition, there is no single expression having the characteristics of propaganda in favour of a terrorist organization. Neither does it legitimize or praise the coercive, violent and threatening methods of a terrorist organization nor does it encourage the employment of such methods.
      As to the charge under Article 301 of the Penal Code, the act of signing the petition cannot be considered an offence under the third paragraph of the article, which explicitly excludes from its scope “expressions of an opinion for the purpose of criticism”.
      The focal point of all the hearings against Academics for Peace was the lack of clarity regarding the charges. Along with the requests for immediate acquittal, defence lawyers underlined the uncertainty surrounding the definition of the charges by pointing to the decision of the Minister to grant permission for an investigation under Article 301 in the case against four academics. Lawyers of some signatories requested the courts to merge the cases of all academics, including the one viewed before the 13th Assize Court against four signatories. They emphasized the need to avoid inconsistencies in the charges on which the prosecution will proceed and in the conclusions to be reached by different courts in relation to one identical act. On similar grounds, the courts with the exception of 35th Assize Court, dismissed the requests for rejoinder of the cases.
      This routine of requests, pleas, rejections and objections had kept going on until the 23th of February, where the 34th Assize Court of Istanbul had given its first expedited judgment and found three of the academics guilty for “carrying out terrorist propaganda” under article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Act. They have been sentenced to 15 months of imprisonment as the courts have decided that the punishment shall be aggravated as the crime of carrying out terrorist propaganda has been deemed to be committed through means of media.
      The courts, relying on the Penal Procedure Code, have offered the academics an option: the deferment of the announcement of the verdict, which enables the court not to announce the decision, and in the case that the defendant will not be found guilty for another crime in a certain period, to foreclose the case. When the accused accepts this mechanism to be applied, then the qualification of the action as a crime becomes officialised and the accused becomes deprived of any rights on appealing the case at a higher court .
      Until today 13 academics have their judgments delivered and 12 of them have accepted to resort to the mechanism of the deferment of the announcement of the verdict. And so far, one signatory had refused the application of this mechanism. As can be seen in the verdict (which is available in the appendices), the Court had rejected the suspension of the punishment upon the grounds that she had not exhibited any expression of remorse. This academic has applied to the Court for Appeal (Istinaf) and she faces the risk of imprisonment.
      Hundreds of other proceedings against other signatories are still on the course. It is still not clear in which way these 13 first rulings will affect the copy-pasted cases considering that the judiciary of the country is collapsing day by day under the state of emergency regime. The first case before the Court of Appeal will probably create a strong judicial precedent that will be highly persuasive while the decisions are made in the future cases against the other signatories. All signatories are tried before various Assize Courts in Istanbul. Istanbul Regional Court of Justice is the competent court for the appeals. The cases will be reviewed by the same two criminal chambers of this Regional Court having competence on cases related to the Anti-Terror Act.
      Today, it is crucial to ask an international support for our colleagues.
      – We would like to invite you to write a short analysis on the verdicts delivered so far. For this purpose, we send you in the appendices the translation of the verdict against the signatory academic, who faces the risk of imprisonment. Please let us know if you were to write an analysis and to publish it on a blog of your choice so that we can also cross post it on the Blog of the Academics for Peace-Germany. If you wish to publish your analysis on this blog, you can directly send it to us.
      – Many academics from different countries assist the hearings as observers. You can be in solidarity in the courtrooms. The presence of international observers during the hearings is crucial.
      Please also feel free to distribute this call for solidarity among scholars who would be interested in supporting our call by either participating in the hearings or by writing a short analysis.
      These actions for solidarity will certainly not suffice to change the course of this politically motivated trials, but certainly influence the way the hearings are held, strengthen the legal struggle of the Academics for Peace under judicial harassment.
      Thank you for your concern and solidarity.

      Academics for Peace – Germany
      Legal Working Group
      afp.jurists@gmail.com

      For more information about the judicial proceedings against Academics for Peace, including the reports and comments of the international observers, please check our blog: https://afp.hypotheses.org
      For a detailed flow of the hearing processes, please check: https://bianet.org/konu/trial-of-academics
      For the calendar of the hearings, please check: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=nstr2fppd37d7o0ekp83qu6e7g@group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Istanbul&pli=1

      Document word reçu via email le 14.05.2018, et que j’ai copié-collé ici.
      Texte accompagnant le message:

      Plus de 260 universitaires signataires de pétition des Universitaires pour la Paix sont actuellement en procédures et plusieurs décisions ont déjà été prises. Certains de nos collègues ont traduit l’acte d’accusation, et plusieurs textes analytiques discutent des procédures et de leurs conséquences.

    • Avant d’entrer en prison à Istanbul, #Füsun_Üstel traite de l’histoire de la citoyenneté en Turquie…

      Toujours aussi déterminée et ferme sur ses principes, notre collègue historienne et professeure de sciences politiques à l’Université de Galatasaray, Füsun Üstel, a prononcé il y a quelques jours à Istanbul une dernière conférence publique avant d’entrer en prison pour 15 mois (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLU7Vu-hyGU

      ). Le thème abordé traitait, et ce choix ne devait évidemment rien au hasard, de « L’histoire de la citoyenneté dans la Turquie républicaine », une histoire sur laquelle Füsun a beaucoup travaillé et publié.


      https://questionsorientoccident.blog/2019/05/03/avant-dentrer-en-prison-fusun-ustel-traite-de-lhistoire-de

      Je découvre dans ce même article qu’elle a travaillé à #Grenoble :

      « Pour la connaître depuis longtemps, et avoir travaillé et enseigné avec elle à Istanbul et à Grenoble, nous ne doutons pas que Füsun saura continuer derrière les barreaux de sa prison pour femmes d’Istanbul son activité d’intellectuelle engagée et de pédagogue… »

      Petite recherche et je me rends compte qu’elle est chercheuse extérieure dans le « Groupe d’études sur la Turquie et l’Europe » à #Pacte :

      https://www.pacte-grenoble.fr/node/23734
      #université_grenoble_alpes