Saturday, January 14, 2012

Headlines

Dear Readers,

Our daily postings will conclude tomorrow with the list of new signatures added to the inaugural declaration of GIT. If you are interested to add your signature to this list,
please send an e-mail to diana.gonzalez2@wanadoo.fr; to join GIT - North America, e-mail gitamerica@yahoo.com

Starting next week, we will start posting twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays. Today we thought of giving you a recap of what we have done in the last two weeks and a half. Since the inauguration of our blog in late December 2011, we aimed to document the Turkish government's various attempts to define 'terrorism' in an extensive manner to tighten the security regime, to persecute journalists and academics, pressure universities and curtail political
participation.

We aim not only to document these practices but also to point to their unjustified and unfair aspects. We posted the letters of those, who are incarcerated just
for expressing their views. We will continue our efforts in solidarity with other GIT branches and with academics, journalists and students whose right to freedom of expression, research, and information is violated or under threat in Turkey. Here are some of the headlines from our earlier posts:
About a description of the new extended security regime, you can read the Minister of Internal Affairs' exemplary speech New Definitions of Terrorism and our denouncement of it here

About various examples of censorship on research and artistic work, and the pressure on scientists, artists and journalists please check out:
We also reflected on hate speech and how it is spread in the media and reinforced by the new press reform. We believe that hate speech triggers hate crimes that many in Turkey suffer from one way or another.

You can read the letters from the prison here

And we published a few pieces of commentary as well.

Please check us out every Sunday and Wednesday from tomorrow on!

We wish you a peaceful 2012!
GIT-North America