An international group of scholars has begun a collaborative effort to address growing violations of academic freedom in Turkey since 2009. Under the pretext of counter-terrorism operations, countless academics, students, translators, lawyers, and journalists have been arbitrarily arrested, posing an extreme threat to freedom of expression and association. It is a shame that after decades of economic and political successes, just as Turkey is on the cusp of being a recognized world leader, the word Turkey once again is associated with “prison” just as in the days of “Midnight Express” and “Yol”.
Inspired by the call of our colleagues in France who have constituted /Groupe International de Travail/, GIT, we have decided to form the North American node of a transnational working group that aims to raise awareness and offer documentation on “Academic Liberty and Freedom of Research in Turkey.”
Hence, our invitation: please consider joining our efforts in GIT-North America, which is currently in the process of articulating its goals and scope. If interested, you could reach us at gitamerica@yahoo.com and join our growing network. If you prefer to just follow our work, please visit GIT-North America’s blog <http://gitamerica.blogspot.com/> and “like” GIT Initiative’s Facebook page <http://www.facebook.com/pages/GIT-Initiative/288505904533560?ref=ts>.
We would also like to remind you that GIT Initiative in France will make public on January 1, 2012 a new list of colleagues worldwide who have added their signatures to the inaugural declaration for Academic Liberty and Freedom of Expression in Turkey. If you wish to sign the declaration, GIT website <http://www.gitinitiative.com/> includes practical information and addresses for your reference. An expanded list of signatures will be published on January 15, 2012.
Jadaliyya has posted translations of a letter and statement from an activist in prison, one of dozens of writers, scholars and civic activists supporting Kurdish rights arrested in the past few months and accused of supporting terrorism. This statement is interesting in part because of the description of how the legal system is handling evidence, the right of the accused to know the charges against her, and treatment of lawyers of the accused. This is not new, of course. Similar accounts by other detainees have been circulated in the press, but it is worth looking carefully at the details of the judicial process, not just the arrests.
In October 2011, Ayşe Berktay (Hacimirzaoglu)—a renowned translator, researcher, and global peace and justice activist—was taken by the police from her home in Istanbul at five o’clock in the morning and subsequently arrested. She still remains imprisoned for the foreseeable future. Below is a letter and statement by Ayşe Berktay, addressed to Lieven De Cauter—a philosopher and founding member of the Brussels Tribunal—who has been organizing an international campaign to release Ayşe Berktay from prison. Click here to sign a petition to stop arbitrary detentions in Turkey….
Photo from jadaliyya
[Below is an excerpt of her statement. For the letter and full statement, click here to go to the jadaliyya site]
Ayşe Berktay’s Summary of Her Situation and Proposals
December 2011 [Istanbul Bakirköy Women’s Prison] Translated from Turkish into English by Amy Marie Spangler
I was taken into custody at 5am on 3 October 2011, when my house was raided by the police. All of us were taken into custody in the same way, at approximately the same hour. My door was not broken down, but the doors of some were. Some of our friends, not at home when the police showed up, went to party headquarters (BDP-Peace and Democracy Party) to find out what was going on and what could be done, and were then taken into custody themselves from there. In fact, one person, upon hearing that the person who generally opens up the BDP’s Istanbul Province Headquarters had been taken into custody, showed up to open the building so that the headquarters wouldn’t remain closed that day. This person too was taken into custody there.
So, I mean, no one attempted escape of any kind. And none of us were summoned for questioning or testimony prior to being taken into custody. The method of raiding houses and forcibly taking people into custody, which should be used only under exceptional circumstances, has now become standard procedure. Being awoken from sleep at five o’clock in the morning to find your house full of armed police is simply unacceptable. Our whereabouts, our jobs, our addresses, our lives are not secret; we can easily be found. If there is an investigation happening, they could easily call us in for questioning. There was absolutely no justification for raiding my house. A thorough search was conducted in my house, which certainly pushed the limits and at least verged upon an invasion of privacy. During the search, books and my computer were confiscated as evidence. The practice of the police and courts thus far indicates that the websites I have visited, articles I have downloaded and read, drafts of articles I have written, and thoughts that I have noted down can all be admitted as elements of crime. Freedom of thought and expression and the freedom to organize have all been completely trampled upon, completely disregarded.
They listened in on our telephone calls. While listening in on private communication is generally something used as a last resort, in our case it happens automatically. Yet I have made no attempt to conceal my actions. Everything I do is completely out in the open.
The file regarding our case has been declared confidential. Therefore, we are unable to learn what we are being accused of or the hard evidence upon which the case is based. Other than general, roundabout expressions like “strong suspicion” and “the nature of the evidence and accusations stated in the file,” we know nothing about the evidence against us, based upon which we have been arrested. Hence it is impossible for us to defend ourselves. Our right to defense has been obstructed, destroyed. We were told that our lawyers would not be given a copy of the deposition we were to give at the police station, accompanied by our lawyers. Legally it is utterly unacceptable to not give a copy of this document, which both I and my lawyer were to sign, to my lawyer. And so no statements were given at the police station. We were transferred to the prosecution office without having first given a deposition. In the document written by the judge responsible for the decision not to give our lawyers copies of our signed depositions, all of the lawyers who had taken on our legal defense were described as potential criminals. The exact words were: A copy of the depositions is not to be given to the lawyers because they may share it with the terror organization…
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