Student protest against YOK dispersed by Istanbul riot police outside University of Istanbul using teargas and rubber bullets, 2015. Demotix/ Sahan Nuhoglu. All rights reserved.Since the collapse of the peace process, the government of Turkey in order to fight the YDG-H has declared 58 open-ended curfews in Turkey’s South East. But the failure to take measures to ensure civilian life and some Government forces’ misconduct has been harming the civilians’ right to life, liberty, and security. These human rights abuses are documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.
On January 11, 1128 academics from Turkey issued a declaration called, “ we will not be a party to this crime”, with the support of 356 international colleagues including Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Immanuel Wallerstein and Slavoj Zizek. The non-partisan declaration was asking the government to end these human rights abuses, prosecute those responsible and resume the peace process.
However, on January 12, right after the ISIS bombing in Sultanahmet, President Erdogan, in an attempt to divert public opinion, targeted our declaration. He denied the human rights abuses, framed our declaration as “terrorist propaganda”, labelled us “ignorant, pseudo-intellectual, and colonialist” and called on educational and legal institutions to take action. Subsequently, the mafia leader Sedat Peker, known for his organized crime but also his friendship with the President, issued a statement promising that he would spill our blood in return for this terrorist propaganda. The alignment of our declaration with terror was also evident in the speeches of PM Davutoglu who argued that the “declaration represents a PKK mentality” and of Bekir Bozdag, who surmounted him by saying that “the declaration is drafted by PKK itself”, a statement that is also aimed at degrading our intellectual capability.
