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Comment and Humans

Dragnet to find Turkey coup plotters is harming academic freedom

By Caghan Kizil

22 July 2016

Two people silhouetted against the Turkish flag

Tough times for academics in Turkey

Halit Onur Sandal

Society’s most prized freedoms always need defending. On 16 July, Turkey woke up to scenes that were unprecedented to most. Shocking images from the attempted coup d’etat included the bombing of parliament, war jets swooping over cities and tanks on the Bosphorus bridges in Istanbul.

This was undemocratic and unacceptable. It claimed the lives of hundreds of citizens. Fortunately, it failed, but the aftermath has unleashed dire consequences for many parts of Turkish society, including its academics.

With the declaration of a three-month state of emergency this week, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan now has the power to enact laws without challenge. It is a worrying time. An undemocratic act may have been repelled, but freedoms are under threat.

The president blamed the uprising on a political network called the Gülen movement. Due to suspected involvement, tens of thousands of public sector employees including educational staff have been suspended and 1577 deans of universities have been forced to resign by the Higher Education Council (YÖK). More than 600 academics have also been sacked.

Finally, all academics have been banned from leaving the country, and those on assignments abroad told to return. Life has just got a lot more difficult for those dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and scientific advance.

Ongoing problem

This purge is ironically a result of Turkey’s ruling AKP government working very closely with the Gülen movement for over a decade until the two fell out several years ago. During the period of cooperation, warnings were sounded that key positions in the education system were being filled by the AKP and Gülen movement.

But today’s actions against academics and the education system are more than a selective hunt for those behind the coup attempt. Those in power are taking advantage to try to restructure this vital part of society by cracking down on anyone who might have opposed their actions in the past.

It is a continuation of previous hostility , demonstrated by the AKP’s earlier subordination of the Turkish Academy of Sciences to political power and prosecution of the group Academics for Peace.

The situation is getting worse; an indiscriminate dragnet is undermining academic freedom by seizing control of this sector’s already-impaired autonomous decision-making. Only one-third of universities’ top-choice candidates after university elections were appointed to key academic positions in the past 15 years. Political or military interference has been a problem for a long time.

Such intimidating top-down control and the blurring of the distinction between criminal investigations and political punishment has long been eradicating free speech and academic creativity in Turkey, and sadly it seems that there is more to come.

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