For several months, our academic colleagues – Turkish citizens, Turks working abroad and foreigners teaching in Turkey – have been facing sanctions or threats of sanctions from the Turkish government, just because they signed a petition.

Some colleagues have been fired, while others have seen their grants canceled or have been prevented from carrying out their academic functions (their calls to tender were rescinded and they were denied participation in academic juries).

In this petition, “We Will Not Be A Party to This Crime,” our colleagues condemned the crimes committed by the Turkish government in the Kurdish provinces. They demanded that this violation of international and Turkish laws stop. They were thus heavily sanctioned simply because they opposed the policies of their government.

Such attacks against freedom of thought and freedom of expression, which now threaten academic freedom of research and teaching, are attacks against all of us. We draw the attention of the *** government and of the European Union to the seriousness of this situation, and we urge them to condemn such a denial of democracy, instead of remaining silent while outsourcing migration control to the Turkish government.

The department of *** / *** laboratory / *** University expresses its solidarity with the researchers, teachers and students who have been threatened. It pledges to actively support these academics (by inviting them, endorsing them, etc.) and urges the rest of the academic community to do likewise.