Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., 2010.Toby Jorrin/Press Association.All rights reserved. As the Turkish government continues to arrest academics across the country, with little to no judicial oversight, Turkish academia finds itself cast back into the murky uncertainty of the 1980s, and the subsequent censorship and disappearances.
Just this week, another 74 academics were arrested under the auspices of being affiliated to Fetullah Gülen, the self-exiled cleric currently accused of masterminding a failed coup against the Erdogan’s government.
Yet the wave of arrests precedes the recent coup attempt. The Government is settling political scores, and is spreading fear throughout its universities. The country is currently undergoing the beginnings of a cultural revolution, and Turkey’s institutions of higher education are among those to be most ruthlessly purged. If we truly believe that the fight for academic freedom is global, then we cannot afford to look the other way. Turkey’s academic freedom, and our own belief in international academic solidarity, is at stake.
