05 Jun 18 | Artistic Freedom, News and features, Turkey
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Kurdish artist and journalist Zehra Doğan
The last time Onur Erem and his girlfriend Zehra Doğan, a Turkish artist and journalist, met face-to-face, she was chirpy and seemed happy, he recalls. They sat at a picnic table and talked about her art being concurrently exhibited in various places around the world, from New York to Europe. They were surrounded by other families, busily conversing amongst each other at the picnic tables to their left and right.
But this was no picnic. Two prison guards walking up and down the aisle in between two rows of tables screwed to the concrete floor, eyeing the prisoners and their families with forced indifference masking wariness, made sure no one lost sight of the fact.
“She was in good spirits,” Erem says, attributing it to her continuing to create art while in prison, just like she did on the outside, before her sudden arrest as she was awaiting the outcome of the court case against her on charges of spreading propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation.
“She writes down the stories of the people she met there. Since there’s not much in terms of the supplies on the inside, she uses the dyes that she makes from food. They don’t give her canvass, so she draws either on clothing or envelopes from the letters she receives. She collects the bird feathers that fall in the prison yard and makes improvised brushes out of them,” he explains.
The reason for Doğan’s incarceration was the drawing she made while covering the Turkish military operation in the town of Nusaybin on the border with Syria, populated mainly by Kurds. The drawing was made based on the photograph that had previously been circulated widely by the Turkish military on social media, according to press reports and Erem. The point of contention is whether the original photograph did or did not include the flags of the Turkish Republic hanging from buildings half-destroyed during the operation.
“She drew a military vehicle in the form of a scorpion. I’d say, this was her only addition to the photograph itself,” he says explaining that the military vehicle his girlfriend depicted in such a manner is referred to as “Akrep”, the Turkish word for a scorpion. “However the judge, in spite of all the evidence presented, sided with the opinion that the photo was taken by Zehra herself, that the original photo didn’t contain the Turkish flags hanging from the destroyed buildings and that [she] added them on for propaganda purposes, and thus, by way of this picture she was engaged in a propaganda on behalf of a terrorist organisation.”
Boxing the art
The widely-shared narrative is that Erdogan lashed out against artists after the July 2016 coup attempt. However, his government had gone after scores of artists and their freedom of artistic expression much earlier, of which Doğan is but one example. Two years after the coup, the crackdown doesn’t seem to dissipate, and the arrest of Turkish rapper Ezhel on inciting drug use in his songs on 24 May 2018 being the latest occurrence.
Attacks on artists across Turkey range from firing of one of the country’s most prominent orchestra conductors İbrahim Yazıcı for his criticism of the Erdogan government, to decapitating Ankara University’s theater department by dismissing Tülin Sağlam, its head and five other senior professors critical of the authoritarianism; from arrests of popular cartoonists, such as Cumhuriyet newspaper’s Musa Kart, to handing down a 10-months sentence against Zuhal Olcay, one of the country’s most popular singers and actresses.
The limitation of artistic freedoms is clearly a trend in Turkey, says Julie Trebault, Director of Artists at Risk Connection, an artistic freedom non-profit based in New York, adding that while in the past two years the attacks have escalated, they’d started before the coup attempt.
Years in the making
“We have several cases, for example, the case of the two filmmakers who have released their film, Bakur in 2015. Bakur was screened at many festivals in Europe for a couple of months without being censored or attacked. And then, in 2015, at the 34th Istanbul film festival, just hours before the premiere, the film got censored,” she recalls, explaining that the film was a documentary about the PKK, a Kurdistan Workers’ Party that is considered a terrorist organisation by the government of Turkey.
As to the persecution of artists even before the coup, Trebault adds “When Erdogan became president, things went down and down and down in Turkey. It took years to arrive where we are in Turkey [now]”.
Turkish filmmaker Elif Refiğ sees the roots and the reasons for the persecution of artists in the Gezi Park protests of 2013. “There had been a very serious oppositional sentiment that had collected in the society until then, that failed to organise until that moment. A very important feature, it included artistic institutions, and its nature was very creative to the extent that it changed the very definition of ‘disobedience’,” she says. According to her, it was a completely peaceful campaign spearheaded by arts institutions that didn’t tolerate violence, and it spread all over the country.
Refiğ points out that in addition to arrests, torture and jailings as ways for the state to punish the disobedient artists that often meet the eye, there are other ways of applying pressure: “The economic obstacles make the lives of the artists miserable. Blacklisting. It makes it difficult for the people to find work, impedes their freedom of movement.” As the case in point, she cites Füsun Demirel, popular television and cinema actress who has been struggling to find work for the past three years because “she is a Kurd, and because she openly voiced her opinions.”
As harmful as it is for the arts in Turkey, the crackdown on the freedom of artistic expression has also affected the general public, Trebault says.
“There’s definitely more self-censorship. People tend to get less out about those issues. People tend to be extremely careful on what they are saying,” she adds.
Responding to a question about the public’s reaction, Refiğ says that, although, the general public is critical, “Where would the criticism from the society be coming from? At this point, all television channels, all newspapers have been silenced by the forces in power.” She explains that multiple ongoing court cases against the media outlets are having a chilling effect on the public.
While the Turkish society is succumbing to self-censorship and its artists are fighting to get out their artistic word amid incarceration and repressions, the international community is struggling with possible solutions.
International support coming too late
“In my personal opinion, the international support is coming to Turkey too late,” says Refiğ. She explains that some international institutions like Pen America or Amnesty International are doing their best to call the international attention to the ongoing crisis with the freedom of expression in Turkey, while others, “institutionalised international organisations,” as she terms them, such as the E.U. and the Council of Europe, for instance, have their own pressing concerns-not letting the mass influx of refugees from the conflicts in the MENA region to cross into their borders, and, therefore, desperately needing the co-operation of the Turkish government.
“At very critical points, when they shouldn’t have restrained their words, they stood by our government, as they were afraid of the opening of the borders [by Turkey] and a free movement of Iraqi and Syrian refugees to Europe” she says of the international institutions. “Hypocrisy is the word that even might come to one’s mind. Words-wise, there’s a lip service to improving the human rights situation in Turkey, but action-wise, there’s very little acting upon it, unfortunately.”
Trebault, on the other hand, says Turkey, as a member of various international bodies is a signatory to important international human rights treaties, and Western governments should call on its government to abide by them.
Grim prospects, great expectations
Looking into the future, Trebault says she doubts things will get better in the next few years in Turkey.
“In 2017 the referendum gave even more power to the president,” she says of the plebiscite that effectively abolished the parliamentary system existing at the time and replaced it with the presidential system with a much stronger executive. “So, to be honest with you, I don’t think there will be changes for the better with this government,” she says.
Back in Diyarbakır’s E-type maximum security prison, while counting days until her release, Doğan is also pondering her future.
Making plans for after her release upon completing her two-and-a-half-year sentence next February, Erem says Doğan plans to continue working on her art, as well as her work as a journalist. “Currently, there’s an exhibit of her artwork In France that includes paintings and drawings smuggled out of the prison, as well as her previous work. This draws the attention of the artistic community, as well as the society at large, that’s why she wants to continue.”
He says that his girlfriend is also taking notes while in prison that she’s planning to use for writing a book when she is out.
“Of course, the solidarity that she sees on the outside also helps a lot. [It] helps her and her jailed friends to keep their spirits high, as they see that their voices are heard on the outside and there are quite a few people who don’t want to leave their side.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1528275200044-7774f8c3-7f31-3″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
23 May 18 | Journalism Toolbox Spanish
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El Grupo Green / EFA campaña por la liberación del periodista Can Dundar que después de su reportaje sobre transportes de armas en Turquía fue encarcelado. Crédito: Rebecca Harms / Flickr[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Hace un tiempo que, cada dos o tres semanas, veo a algún colega salir del juzgado camino de prisión, o consigo robar unos momentos con algún compañero de trabajo detenido, al que echo mucho de menos, bajo la atenta mirada de las autoridades. Pero no le tenemos miedo a esta oscuridad como de calabozo: los periodistas solo hacemos nuestro trabajo.
Soy reportera judicial para Cumhuriyet desde 2013, así que paso la mayor parte de mi vida laboral en los juzgados. Todos tenemos momentos imposibles de olvidar en nuestras vidas como profesionales. Para mí, uno de esos momentos fue el 5 de noviembre de 2016, el día que arrestaron a 10 de nuestros redactores y coordinadores. Estaba esperando a la decisión del tribunal justo al otro lado de la barrera en el juzgado y, en el instante en que escuché el veredicto, me recorrió una ráfaga de orgullo por nuestros 10 redactores y coordinadores, seguida de la ira y de una profunda depresión por el destino de mis amigos.
Sentí orgullo porque la decisión del tribunal mencionó el hecho de que habían sido arrestados por su trabajo periodístico. Al enumerar ejemplos de nuestros reportajes como una de las razones del arresto, el juez cogió la insistencia del gobierno en que «no habían sido arrestados por periodistas» y la arrojó por la borda. Sentí ira y tristeza porque estaban enviando a nuestros amigos a una cautividad indefinida. La policía ni siquiera nos permitió despedirnos de nuestros colegas, que estaban apenas a 30 o 40 metros de distancia, al otro lado de una barrera. Pero, pese a la multitud de emociones que sentí, el miedo no estaba entre ellas. Cuando los ataques al periodismo se dan a tal escala, el miedo se convierte en un lujo.
Tras el arresto de nuestros diez compañeros, empezaron a llegar muchos periodistas de toda Europa a la redacción de nuestro periódico. Nuestros colegas extranjeros querían saber lo que había pasado y cómo nos sentíamos, y todos tenían la misma pregunta: «¿Tenéis miedo?». Desde noviembre, los arrestos a periodistas han sido continuos y regulares. Pero, como aquel día, mi respuesta a sus preguntas es, simple y llanamente: «¡No!».
No tenemos miedo porque estamos haciendo nuestro trabajo, y nuestro trabajo es lo único que nos preocupa. No tenemos miedo porque nosotros también nos sentimos como si hubiéramos pasado estos largos meses en la prisión de Silivri con nuestros compañeros. No tenemos miedo porque ya apenas hay diferencia entre estar dentro o fuera de prisión. No tenemos miedo porque nuestros colegas presos mantienen la cabeza bien alta. No tenemos miedo porque Fethullah Gülen, el clérigo exiliado acusado por el gobierno de estar tras el fallido intento de golpe del año pasado, no fue nuestro «cómplice» jamás. No tenemos miedo porque el Cumhuriyet que los gobiernos de todas las épocas han intentado silenciar solo informaba, informa e informará.
Ahmet Şık, un reportero de mi periódico, lleva en prisión provisional desde diciembre de 2016. Anteriormente, en 2011, junto al ex Jefe de Estado General İlker Başbuğ y multitud de soldados, policías, periodistas y académicos, Şık pasó más de un año en prisión por el caso «Ergenekon». Los acusaron de estar tratando de derrocar al gobierno.
Şık está actualmente bajo custodia acusado de conspirar con el movimiento de Gülen. Pero debido a las características del sistema judicial turco, el caso por el que arrestaron a Şık en 2011 sigue pendiente, lo cual nos dio la oportunidad de verlo en el juzgado el 15 de febrero. Esperé fuera de la sala, junto a las puertas. Cuando las abrieron, lo único que vi fue una cara sonriendo de esperanza: era la primera vez en meses que podía ver a sus amigos. Aunque Şık es un periodista con mucha más experiencia que yo, su mesa estaba cerca de la mía en la redacción, y lo echaba de menos.
Durante aquella sesión, resumió la lucha que existe a día de hoy por continuar la labor periodística en un estado de excepción de este modo: «La historia de los que creen tener el poder y lo utilizan para perseguir a los periodistas es tan antigua como la del mismo periodismo».
El diciembre pasado, seis periodistas, incluidos algunos de mis amigos, fueron retenidos durante 24 días a causa de una investigación sobre el hackeo de los emails del ministro Berat Albayrak. (Albayrak es el yerno del Presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan.) Más adelante, el juez ordenó prisión preventiva para tres de estos periodistas. Durante este tiempo uno de ellos, Mahir Kannat, fue padre, pero no pudo ver a su hijo. A su compañero apresado, Tunca Öğreten, no le permitieron enviar ni recibir cartas, ni ver a nadie salvo a su familia inmediata. Tuvo que pedirle matrimonio a su novia a través de sus abogados.
Hace poco escuché a uno de estos periodistas relatar un recuerdo de su tiempo en el juzgado. Al notar que su fe en la justicia se tambaleaba, en un intento por salir libres, recurrieron a supersticiones durante las vistas. Metin Yoksu, un periodista liberado, dijo que tres de ellos se habían sentado cerca de la salida y habían reemplazado los cordones de sus zapatos —los cuales les habían quitado— por cordones hechos de trozos de botellas de agua. ¿El resultado? Los que se habían sentado cerca de la puerta de salida fueron los que salieron libres.
La confianza en el sistema judicial turco se ha desmoronado hasta tal punto que ahora nos amparamos en la superstición. Qué deprimente.
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Para leer sobre el proyecto de Index «Turquía sin censura», visita indexoncensorship.org
Traducido del turco John Butler
Traducido al español por Arrate Hidalgo
La periodista Canan Coşkun es reportera judicial en Cumhuriyet. Actualmente se enfrenta a cargos de difamación a la identidad turca, la República de Turquía y los órganos e instituciones estatales por uno de sus artículos. El artículo cubría el caso de un camión lleno de armas escondidas bajo un cargamento de cebollas. También se la acusa de haber retratado como objetivos a los policías que luchan contra el periodismo para un reportaje sobre los arrestos a kurdos turcos.
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SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen”][vc_column_text]Historian Rana Mitter talks about China’s current historical narrative, broadcaster Bettany Hughes discusses how memory affects history and Omar Mohammed talks on the dangers of recording history under Isis in this Index magazine podcast.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Read”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the spring 2018 Index on Censorship magazine explores how history is being abused by countries and groups around the world.
With: Neil Oliver, Louisa Lim, Simon Callow[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
22 May 18 | News and features, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81952″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]While the scale of Turkey’s crackdown on freedom of expression in the post-coup-attempt emergency rule era has been intense, the assault on dissenting voices predated the failed putsch.
Whether it they were Kurdish writers at the turn of the decade, or worked for Feza Publications just months before the night elements of the military betrayed their fellow Turks, journalists that offered alternative viewpoints were long in president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crosshairs.
In the case of Feza’s popular publications — among them Zaman and the English-language Zaman Daily — which had been raided and its employees arrested on several occasions since 2014 as the shakey rule of law eroded in Turkey. In a March 2016 move that was condemned internationally, Feza Publications was targeted with the imposition of government-appointed trustees. This resulted in the termination of hundreds of media professionals from journalists to advertising reps and the literally overnight change from independent and critical outlets to government propaganda sheets.
An appeal on the takeover of Feza was made to the European Court of Human Rights to address a clear violation of the right to freedom of expression, among others. Yet the application was rejected on what was seen as questionable grounds, becoming one of the many disappointing decisions taken by the international court.
Takeover
The assault on Feza Publications was ordered by the Istanbul 6th Criminal Court of the Peace on Friday 4 March 2016. By nightfall, the police had raided the Zaman newspaper office, using tear gas and water cannons on the protestors outside. The Saturday edition of Zaman was the last version of a free newspaper. The front page headline declared “the constitution suspended” and noted that Turkish press had seen one of its “darkest days”. The Sunday edition, under new ownership, was a disconcerting contrast. The front page showed a smiling president Erdogan holding hands with an elderly woman, coupled with an announcement that was he hosting a Women’s Day event. The main headline was “Historic excitement about the bridge”, a reference to a span being built across the Bosphorus with state funding.
Newly appointed government trustees immediately interfered with editorial decisions. A staff member commented that: “Before the takeover, our deadline was 7:30pm. The trustees moved that deadline to 4:30pm, and in the remaining three hours they censored and changed the paper to fit their new ‘line’.” The new management had also banned staff access to the newspapers’ archives.
The police who had raided the office on the Friday, stayed on to check staff IDs and prevent groups of three or more from assembling. Hundreds of Feza Publications employees were then dismissed under Article 25 of the Turkish labour law which lays out that contracts can be annulled without prior notice if an employee displays “immoral, dishonourable or malicious conduct”. Those dismissed have recounted how they received a generic letter which gave no explanation the accusations.
Considered enemies of the state, former Feza Publications employees found it difficult to obtain new jobs. They were left to survive on little to no income; Article 25 outlines that those dismissed are not eligible for redundancy packages or other compensation And recruiters were right to be weary; four-and-a-half months after the takeover, the July 16th coup attempt occurred, and purges began on a massive scale. Thousands of journalists were dismissed, and dozens were detained on terrorism-related charges. Feza Publications, already marked as Gulen-linked and thus terrorist – without the presumption of innocence – during the takeover, was a prime target. Thirty-one Zaman employees are currently standing trial, with nine, including Şahin Alpay, facing life sentences. In January 2018, Turkey’s constitutional court ordered that Şahin Alpay, alongside journalist Mehmet Altan, be released from pre-trial detention.
After the lower courts refused to comply, the ECtHR ruled that their detention was unlawful and that they should each be compensated €21,500.
The other journalists, unable to garner the same international support, have remained in pre-trial detention. Zaman’s Ankara chief Mustafa Ünal, arrested purely because of his newspaper columns and facing the same circumstances as Alpay, has also applied to the ECtHR. But his application was rejected, and after almost two years behind bars he expresses in despair “my scream for justice has faded away in a bottomless pit”. He is not alone, with the ECtHR and international community doing little in light of the Feza Publications debacle and abolishment of the freedom of expression in Turkey.
Appeal to the ECtHR
The Feza Publications takeover and ensuing rights violations, on top of individual pleas for justice, has led to appeals for the entity itself. Two shareholders of Feza Gazetecİlİk A.Ş. (the Feza stock company) took the matter of government-appointed trustees to the Turkish constitutional court. When this appeal failed, they applied to the ECtHR regarding violations of: Article 10, right to freedom of expression; Protocol Article 1, right to property; Article 7 and 6.2, no punishment without law and presumption of innocence; and Article 8, respect for private and family life. Dated 29 July 2016, the application was rejected by ECtHR Judge Nebojsa Vucinic on 14 December 2017 with reference to the Köksal v. Turkey decision.
The decision is reference to a case surrounding Gökhan Köksal, a teacher and one of over 150,000 dismissed from their jobs after the coup attempt. The ECtHR had rejected his appeal on the basis that he must first apply to the Turkish State of Emergency Commission, i.e., first exhaust all domestic avenues. The Köksal decision was problematic. The State of Emergency Commission was established in January 2017 for appeals against dismissals and closures assumed under the state of emergency imposed since 20 July 2016. To date, the Commission has only approved 310 out of 10,010 finalised cases, a 3% success rate. There are almost 100,000 cases still under examination. Many consider the mechanism to be inefficient, and its impartiality questionable. It should not be considered a reliable domestic avenue. Reference to the State of Emergency Commission in relation to Feza Publications poses a further problem; the appointment of government trustees occurred four-and-a-half months before the state of emergency was implemented.
The ECtHR decision is completely inadequate. Although some Feza employees were dismissed under state of emergency decrees, other dismissals and violations pertaining to the Human Rights Convention commenced well before. Although all Feza media outlets (Zaman and Zaman Daily, the Cihan News Agency, Aksiyon magazine, and the Zaman Kitap publishing house) were closed via emergency decree in July 2016, Feza shareholders are not entitled to apply to the State of Emergency Commission. Only persons in charge of the legal entities or institutions at the time of closure – by that point, the government appointed trustees – have the right to apply. Such a situation is implausible, leaving the ECtHR as the only option. Besides, it has been shown that regardless, neither the State of Emergency Commission nor the Turkish judicial system should be considered viable domestic avenues to appeal rights violations.
This ECtHR decision, one in a long line of disappointing rulings for Turkish victims, is seriously flawed. The ECtHR must reconsider the Feza Publications application, alongside those such as Köksal v. Turkey which only pave the way for future rejections. Without adequate ECtHR rulings there is little hope for the upholding of human rights, such as freedom of expression, in Turkey.
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18 May 18 | Academic Freedom, News and features, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”100439″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]When in 2014 sociologist Azat Gündoğan and his wife – both Western-educated professors of Kurdish origin from Turkey – made the decision to move home, they felt excited. The couple had accepted teaching jobs at Mardin Artuklu University – a university created in Turkey’s south-east region, in the city of Mardin, as part of the so-called Kurdish Opening in 2007 – and were looking forward to reuniting with their families, friends and their people.
“When we decided to go back, we knew that we would find great colleagues there. We were so excited to do our research there, bring our experience of alternative world to generally first generation Kurdish students. It was a good thing to do, plus as a family, we would be together,” he recalls.
Little did they know that their euphoria would be short lived, and that it would take something as benevolent as a 2016 peace petition to crush the foundations of Kurdish academia in Turkey.
A small window for Kurdish Academia
For decades, the Turkish state dismissed its 12 million-strong Kurdish minority and their right to education in their native language, let alone Kurdish studies. After being prohibited during the 1990s because the Turkish state saw it as an element of separatism, the Kurdish language resurfaced in public life as Turkey attempted to enter the European Union in the 2000s. The government initiated the Kurdish Opening, a multi-tiered policy approach intended to resolve tensions with the Kurdish minority.
“Unfortunately, in Turkey, like with any other minority, when it comes to Kurdish professors, associate professors, or researchers, it was not an environment where people could openly declare their [ethnic] identity, in academia they would try to cover it to the possible extent, wouldn’t ever try to come forward with their Kurdish identity prior to the Kurdish Opening,” says Ali Akel, freelance journalist and former Washington correspondent for Yeni Şafak newspaper, adding that not a single university taught Kurdish studies prior to the Kurdish Opening, and when there were attempts to do so, the Turkish government shut them down for various technical excuses.
However, during the Kurdish Opening, “Kurdish academics did demonstrate courage to make their positions known,” he says.
Gündoğan recalls that in 2007 the AKP opened a number of universities across the country. One of them, the Mardin Artuklu University, became the cradle of Kurdology. In 2009, Turkey’s Board of Higher Education allowed this university to set up a Department of Living Languages, including Kurdish. The university invited Kurdish scholars from abroad to help. The department was not only to research Kurdish language, history and culture, but also train professors and scholars to teach future generations. In 2009 the head of the board, Yusuf Ziya Özcan said, “This is the model we will use if other universities want to serve citizens who speak different languages,” and then president Abdullah Gül spoke on TV about the importance for the Kurdish minority to use its own language.
Yet many of the efforts were just on paper, Akel says, reminding of an example from 2015, when the Turkish Ministry of Education published the names of the teachers certified for various disciplines.
“How many people do you think there were for the Kurdish language? Just one,” he stressed. “This shows the attitude.”
The Gündoğans, encouraged by the Kurdish Opening, returned home and started teaching at Mardin Artuklu University. But, he says, they felt that things were quickly deteriorating.
“There were local changes: the Kurdish peace process was halted, plus the refugee crisis, and the electoral victory of the HDP [a pro-minority Peoples’ Democratic Party]. And we witnessed the local reflections of these developments. While for the Turkish academia, in general, the turning point was the peace petition, by then in the Kurdish academia we had already started to experience oppression, and the changing attitudes at the university,” Gündoğan says.
In 2015, the liberal rector of the university was replaced by an Erdoğan-backer, and once appointed the new rector terminated contracts with 13 foreign professors. Other professors protested and started organizing to create a collective titled “Independent University Platform” on campus as an alternative academic community, he recalls.
But while Kurdish scholars were fighting to preserve what little was created during the Kurdish Opening window, Turkey was hit by a larger academia crisis.
When calling for peace is a threat to the state
The fledgling process came to the complete halt in February 2016 when numerous members of the Turkish academic circles started circulating a document that became known as a “peace petition.” The document meant as a benevolent appeal to the conscience of the Turkish state and citizenry and calling for the immediate end to hostilities against the civilians in the majority-Kurdish regions of south-eastern Turkey was initially signed by 1,128 academics, reversed the tentative progress of the Kurdish Opening and erased all of its humble gains.
However, Gündoğan considers himself and his wife “the lucky ones” in this entire ordeal: “Our colleagues, their careers are finished. One of them, in Ankara, committed suicide. Others lost jobs. Some are jailed.”
He calls this “the very turning point for the Turkish academia” as it relates to the state’s reaction: “They react only whenever they [the state] feel that there is a point of articulation between the Kurds and the Turks, and alliance that would create a danger, a risk, that would offset the official discourse.”
In his opinion, this was the exact such moment, “Because that initiative didn’t come from the Kurds per se. If it did, as was the case a ton of times in the past, the state could contain it easily, by violence, by marginalisation, by stigmatisation, by oppression.” However, this time, the movement came from academics at the most established and prestigious universities, and they started demanding peace, and the peaceful nature of these demands coming from the most established segments of the society, the academia, was exactly what scared and angered the state, Gündoğan concludes.
Akel agrees, considering the leading role played by the Turkish, rather than Kurdish academia in circulating the peace petition.
Among those who signed the petition, be it from abroad, or from Turkish universities such as Boğaziçi, Galatasaray, Gazi or ODTÜ (Middle East Technical University) “there were Kurds, of course, academics of Kurdish origin,” and in large numbers, according to Akel, which led the government to label the entire initiative as the pro-PKK propaganda and sue many of the signatories, even before the orchestrated crackdown began.
Akel, speaking of the government reaction, says, “I believe, the number of the removed [from university jobs] was 5,200 and growing. It was no longer about those who merely opposed the government, but not actively being on the side of the government was enough.”
Rosa Burç, an ethnically Kurdish academic from Turkey, a political scientist at the University of Bonn, speaking of the scope of the government retaliation and university expulsions in the aftermath of the peace petition, calls it a “witch hunt”: “According to the Turkish state, the [petition] didn’t condemn the terrorists’ actions. So, thus, a whole witch hunt against all kinds of thinkers- academics, writers, journalists, and not just Kurdish, but also non-Kurdish people started there.”
The return of the 1990s
Two years after the peace petition, things are further deteriorating, Gündoğan says. And according to Burç, the charges against the academics were never dropped, and an increasing number of them are losing jobs.
“The ban of the word ‘Kurdistan’ in the parliament happened a few months ago. And then a few weeks ago, they changed it so now you can’t even mention the Kurdish region. This is also reflected in the academia. For example, a Ph.D. student, defending their thesis, using the word ‘Kurdistan’, or anything related to the Kurdish realities. A few of my friends told me that the reviewing committees advise the students to change and remove those words. The general conclusion is that either one has to leave the country to do it, or just stop their Ph.D. thesis. Or they have to adjust to the new standards in the academia,” she says.
She adds, however, that in future there will be research, and “anything that is related to the issue of autonomy, the issue of communalism in the Kurdish areas, the Kurdish identity, since they are considered a threat to the current Turkish government narrative,” will remain banned topics for academics. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1526917973893-b1ee57cb-d4ac-6″ taxonomies=”8843, 55″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
