We are a group of academics united in our commitment to international standards on higher education and academic freedom, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Lima Declaration on Academic Freedom and Autonomy of Institutions of Higher Education, the Magna Carta Universitatum, and the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel.
Some of us are signatories to the Academics for Peace Declaration, which called on the Turkish government to end the state violence against the Kurdish people and seek a peaceful resolution to the long-standing Turkey’s Kurdish question. Following the lynching campaign orchestrated by the Turkish president and implemented by the Turkish higher education establishment, some of these signatories have now sought refuge in European and North American universities.
Some of us are just researchers on or academics informed about Turkey. We have become alarmed by the extent to which the Turkish government has made the Turkish higher education system unfit for scholarly activity in general and for academic collaboration in particular.
We are united in our call for a targeted and evidence-based academic boycott of the Turkish higher education system. Our aim is to: (i) secure an end to the violation of academic freedom and persecution of academics in Turkey; (ii) ensure that all academic victims of the Turkish government are re-instated into their jobs and fully compensated; and (iii) ensure that those responsible for and complicit in the cull of the academic freedom and higher education standards in Turkey are held to account.
Academics for Peace – UK
Academics for Peace – France
Academics for Peace – Germany
Academics for Peace – Switzerland
Academics for Peace – North America
Academic Boycott of Turkey 