Description:

In January 2016, 1128 academics in Turkey signed a petition as "Academics for Peace" protesting the Turkish government's attack on and human rights violations against the Kurdish population in the southeastern part of Turkey. This act of protest was immediately met with the government's ire, triggering now a three-year vengeance where the signatories were subjected to hate speech, threats, imprisonment without trial; dismissed from their posts, tried in court for making propaganda for a terrorist organization and sentenced to jail. As of December 2018, over 500 academics are on trial for signing this peace petition and the government continues unabatedly to file charges against the rest of the signatories with the same accusation. As one of the "Academics for Peace" on triaI, who has followed the events and court cases of the last three years closely, Can Candan will present in detail about why and how this petition came into being; what has happened since then; how the peace petition became a symbol for the fight for academic freedoms as well as a site of solidarity and resistance in Turkey. Audio-visual materials from Candan's field work will accompany his talk.