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  • P50

Response to Query by Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Letter to the UN office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights responding to their query about our earlier correspondence with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression concerning the cases of academics facing prosecution in Turkey on charges of denigrating the Turkish state or insulting the President.

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Government Actions Against Peace Petition Signatories

Letter to PM Davutoglu (see previous letters of January 14, 2016 and February 22, 2016) concerning an escalation in government actions against Peace Petition signatories and their supporters including arrests, a deportation of a foreign academic and a declaration by the President that the Turkish Criminal Code will be amended to broaden the definition of terrorism to include academic activities.

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Magnitude of Harassment, Intimidation, Prosecution, and Repression to Peace Petition Signatories

Letter to PM Davutoğlu (see previous letter of January 14, 2016) concerning the gravity and magnitude of the pattern of harassment, intimidation, prosecution and repression to which academics have been subjected as a consequence of signing the Peace Petition, followed by a comprehensive appendix detailing these violations of academic freedom.

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Graduate Student Haydar Darici Facing Travel Ban and Criminal Indictment

Letter to PM Davutoğlu (see previous letter of January 5, 2015) concerning graduate student Haydar Darıcı, who is currently subject to a travel ban, preventing him to return to the US to continue his doctoral studies, and criminal indictment for his academic activities and writings, including twitter activity, with regard to the Kurds in Turkey.

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Police Violence at Middle East Technical University Responding to Student Protests

Letter regarding police violence at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University on December 18, 2012, when an extraordinarily large police contingent was deployed. Students were protesting government policies on the regulation of higher education and the attendant violation of student rights during PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to the METU campus in connection to the launching of the Göktürk-2 satellite.

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Legal Battle by Pinar Selek Depicting Climate of Intimidation

The fourteen-year-long cycle of trials and acquittals that has subjected Pınar Selek, a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Strasbourg, to prolonged denial of justice. Selek’s plight has also contributed to a climate of intimidation confronting all scholars, within and outside of Turkey, who wish to conduct research and writing on Kurdish issues.

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