Individual lawsuits launched against Peace Declaration signatory academics

Istanbul – Signatories to the “Academics for Peace” are accused of “terrorist propaganda” over individual law cases. However, there are some interesting details in the indictment. ‘Solidarity Academies’ are alleged with ‘encouraging students to an uprising’ and academics are allegedly accused of ‘making professional touches’ in the Peace Declaration.

Individual lawsuits are being launched against academics who signed the declaration entitled “We won’t be a party to this crime” which consisted of an appeal to Ankara to “abandon its deliberate violence and curfews in the Kurdish region and restart the negotiation” by more than thousand academics and researchers in Turkey and around the world.

In the statement made by Academics for Peace, it was mentioned that the lawsuit process has started.

Academics are accused of allegedly representing PKK as the ‘representative of the Kurdish political movement’.

Alleged accusation against Solidarity Academies of ‘encouraging an uprising’

‘Solidarity academies’ which were founded by the academics after they were purged with the decree laws are also seen as a crime factor.

Moreover, academics are accused of allegedly encouraging students to an uprising via the ‘solidarity academies’.

Accusation of ‘professional touches’

There are more interesting details in the indictment.

In one of the accepted indictments, it is stated that the academics who signed the Peace Declaration are allegedly accused of ‘changing some words and terms deliberately’ in the English version of the declaration and ‘managed to make foreigners to sign the declaration with this way’.

Indictment states:

With the professional touches to the texts, they especially tried to legitimize PKK/KCK’s violent and threatening methods in both national and international level or to make their propaganda, thereby encouraging people to use them.

In reality, the indictment incorrectly recorded the words – which are claimed to be changed with professional touches – on the legal claims.

Although ‘Kürt illeri’ was translated as “Kurdish provinces” in the English version of the declaration, in the indictment, it is stated that by using the phrase “Kürdistan illeri” (Kurdistan provinces), the academic used a discriminative and separatist language.

After the start of the lawsuit process, Academics for Peace released a statement.

In the statement, they pointed out that academics are facing individual lawsuit cases:

They do want to leave all of us alone in the corridors of the courthouse. They are clearly afraid of all 1128 academics to stand in trial together.

What happened?

In the Peace Declaration signed by more than a thousand academics and researchers in January 2016, curfews and violence in Kurdish cities was mentioned and government was urged to end violence in the region and to prepare negotiation conditions.

They urged government to end the violence immediately, adding that they could not be a part of the massacre by staying silent under these conditions as academics and researchers of the country and they would continue to contact with political parties, the parliament and the international community until the demand is implemented.

In the declaration, after series of demands, they said “We urge the government to create a route map which would include Kurdish political will”.

After publishing the declaration, academics who signed it was targeted by the government, some of them have been arrested and then released, and some academics were purged with the decree laws.