Turkey acquits more than 100 academics who signed peace declaration

Turkish courts have acquitted more than 100 academics who have been facing trial for charges that include making propaganda for a terrorist organization.

More than 2,000 academics in 2016 signed a petition entitled, We will not be a party to this crime, in reference to the Turkish army’s use of heavy weaponry in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish-populated southeastern provinces.

Hundreds of academics who also urged through a petition the end of clashes between Turkish security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have been facing trial over terror-related charges.

Classified as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government, the outlawed PKK is an armed militant group that has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in areas in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

In less than three weeks more than 100 academics were acquitted by Turkish courts that have ruled that signing the declaration of peace did not create propaganda for a terrorist organization.

The acquittals followed a verdict by Turkey’s Constitutional Court (AYM) in July that the Turkish judiciary had violated academics’ right to freedom of expression by charging them with terror offenses for signing the peace petition.

As it is binding for all subordinate courts across Turkey’s legal landscape and judicial system, the decision of the AYM, which followed an appeal by nine academics charged with terror crimes, served as a precedent for ongoing trials of the academics.

Among those who have been acquitted are Nazım Richard Hikmet Dikbas, who taught at the Departments of Visual Communication Design and Art and Cultural Management at Istanbul Bilgi University and Cenk Yigiter, a former academician at the Law School of the Ankara University.

Dikbas and Yigiter announced their acquittals on their social media accounts on Monday.

“We should not have been facing prosecution in the first place. All of the KHK’s [state-of- emergency decrees] should be canceled, our academicians must be reinstated to their jobs. We still got things to do, keep on working,” Dikbas said in a tweet.

In the tweet he wrote, Dikbas used the hashtag #BarışTalebiYargılanamaz, which means the demand for peace cannot be prosecuted.

“We have not been a party to this crime, nor have we surrendered. This is only the beginning. We will come back and hold those responsible to account for this. Long live our struggle for labor, peace, and democracy!” Yigiter also stated on Twitter.

Within the scope of the state-of-emergency decrees issued by the AKP government during the two-year emergency rule that came after the failed putsch bid on July 15, 2016, hundreds of peace petition signatories were dismissed from their jobs.

Many of those academics were also subjected to travel bans and had their passports revoked.

Law, peace, and democracy in Turkey is our aim says pro-Kurdish MP

 

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from IPA NEWS https://ipa.news/2019/09/17/turkey-acquits-more-than-100-academics-who-signed-peace-declaration/