Links


* Here is the website originally created by our colleagues in France:


* And here is the website created by our colleagues in Turkey:

http://gitturkiye.com/


* The home page of Academics for Peace:



* The peace petition "We will not be a party to this crime!" (in English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Greek) - issued on January 10, 2016 and signed by 2212 academics from Turkey by the close date of January 20, 2016




* Initiative for Solidarity with Imprisoned Students [Tutuklu Öğrencilerle Dayanışma İnisiyatifi] website, "the anonymous student":

http://www.mechulogrenci.com/

* For some news:


* Regarding the law against terrorism (TMK), whereby many activities, rights for association and expression are criminalized:


* The original 2006 call for revising the law against terror, voicing concerns with the language and definition of the law and predicting the dynamics of today:


* 2010 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index that locates Turkey in rank 138 (of 178 countries in total), dropping from 102 since 2008:


* Associated Press has conducted a research on 66 countries, and accordingly, one third of the terrorism convicts in the world are in Turkey. Following the 2006 changes to the anti-terror law, "anti-terror convictions shot up from 273 in 2005 to 6,345 in 2009," placing Turkey on the top of the list. Roughly, 1 out of every 6000 of Turkey's citizens were arrested as "terrorists," followed by China which arrested 1 out of 180,000 of its citizens.

The Associated Press research results and synthesis:


* A commentary on the problematic uses of the anti-terror law as a form of governance and consolidating power--written in Turkish by Ahmet Insel, an academic at Galatasaray University:


* Grievance letters on Turkey's academic freedom issues written and published on the Committee for Academic Freedom site at MESA (Middle East Studies Association):


* Account of Arzu Demir, one of the 6 journalists who were released three days after having been taken into detention on December 20. This is a first hand testimonial written in Turkish on the nature of the interrogations and allegations:


* Interview with Cagdas Ersoy, a student being charged with ten different cases of involvement in protests:


* To read translator, researcher, and global peace and justice activist Ayşe Berktay's letter and statement, "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" please visit Jadalliya's website link below; also, click here to sign a petition to stop arbitrary detentions in Turkey:


* To join "Freedom of Thought and Speech in Turkey. Right Now" please visit the Facebook page set up for this group:


* A college student in jail for an internship inquiry: To Read about Şeyma Özcan, a second year Boğaziçi University student majoring in History, who is in jail because of a phone call she made to inquire about an internship at a newspaper see:


* To read about how according to the European Court of Human Rights [ECHR] Judge Işıl Karakaş, arrests in Turkey are the basis and release the exception, and how Turkey "was the country in the worst situation considering press freedom and freedom of expression" and "the country with the most convictions ruled by the ECHR in this area" please visit the link provided from Bianet below. According to this article, "the number of applications filed to the ECHR from Turkey in 2011 has increased incredibly. This year, about 9,000 applications were made compared with less than 6,500 last year. This shows that some things are not going right in Turkey despite a set of regulations, reforms or developments expected for the judiciary."


* To read about the opening session of the "Freedom Express - Özgürlük Ekspresi," held on November 16th in Istanbul, which aims at creating a forum of free thought for the discussion of different ideas without polarization, please visit the link below. The first guests of this event hosted by journalist Banu Güven were Nadire Mater, journalist and photographer Wilco van Herpen and journalist Faruk Mercan. Güven emphasized that "[p]ress Freedom occupies a large part within freedom of expression" and "claimed that this situation had an impact on the journalists' freedom to make news as well as on the readers' freedom to information." The discussants agreed that what obstructed the freedom of expression used to be Article 301, denigrating Turkishness, and that now, it the Anti-Terrorism Law has replaced Article 301 in obstructing free expression. More details:


* To read about the continuing trial of award winning journalist Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık visit Hürriyet Daily News. You can read selections from Ahmet Şık’s book which led to his arrest on Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (the book has since been published in Turkish under the title of OOO Kitap).
 
* To read about Baran Nayır and Ali Deniz Kılıç, two students who had participated in a demonstration more than two years ago and have been held in custody since then visit Bianet:

http://bianet.org/english/diger/134924-two-students-under-custody-since-2009-despite-lack-of-evidence 

* To read Eren Buğlalılar's "The Epidemic of Terrorism under Turkey's Mubarak" where Buğlalılar talks about the statistics of detainees, arrests, under the claims of terrorism, and refers to a  report prepared by the Progressive Lawyers Association [Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği] whereby hundreds of students are arrested please visit MRZINE of the Monthly Review. We also learn from Buğlalılar that this Association too was raided by the police and 33 lawyers member of this association were arrested.  

* To read the list of the students who are arrested in a report prepared by the Progressive Lawyers Association [Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği] please visit:

http://www.chd.org.tr/haber_detay.asp?haberID=608  

* To read on translation, censorship, and the Prime Ministerial Board of Protection of Minors from Harmful Publications which usually targets against sexuality, and how the Board sought to implement censorship on such publications as The Fight Club's writer American author Chuck Palahniuk's another novel, Snuff, whereby prosecutors opened a lawsuit against the translator and the publisher of the book who now face prison charges between 6 months and 3 years; or another such example (the Beat Generation writer William Burroughs' Naked Lunch)please visit:





* To see a full list of journalists in prison in late 2011 visit:

http://www.turkeyemergency.com/2011/journalists-imprisoned-prison-turkey/  

* To read book censorship watch releases on Turkey see:

http://www.censorwatch.co.uk/thread00674_book_censorship_in_turkey.htm 

* To read the report of the Reporters without Borders on the "seizure and destruction of all known copies of the last unpublished draft copy of a book by Ahmet Şık," which the Reporters without Borders describes as a work "which explores the relationship between the police and the influential Islamic 'Gülen Movement,' [and] is said to contain revelations about the “Ergenekon” antiterrorist trial, which has tainted Turkish political life for years," visit the link below. [Please note that the book has been published since, in the last months of 2011, under the collective signature of over 120 intellectuals, writers and journalists, including author Yaşar Kemal.]

http://en.rsf.org/turquie-seizure-and-destruction-of-ahmet-25-03-2011,39890.html 

* To read an interview with French historian, professor and co-founder of GIT Initiative and GIT France, Vincent Duclert (EHESS) on the Armenian genocide, the recent non-negation law in France and the current repression of researchers in Turkey, in which the recent creation of GIT and the necessity of France to support the work of researchers is stated, please visit the following links:

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2011/12/29/le-genocide-armenien-l-extermination-1-3_1624124_3224.html#ens_id=1620748

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2011/12/29/le-genocide-armenien-la-memoire-et-l-oubli-2-3_1624169_3224.html
 
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2011/12/29/le-genocide-armenien-le-negationnisme-d-etat-turc-3-3_1624175_3224.html#ens_id=1624192
 
* To view a website that keeps record of the sites blocked because of controversial internet filters (and/or report your own experience with a blocked site), please visit:

http://engelliweb.com/  

* To read a commentary blog on censorship in Turkey, please see:

http://sansuresansur.blogspot.com/  
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)