Turkey cracks down on academic freedom
03 July 2012
More than 700 people protested at the trial of political scientist Büşra Ersanlı in Istanbul this week.
Turkey is upping the pressure on scientists and students who question its policies, and international human-rights advocates are taking notice.
In the past few years, the government has clamped down on the independence of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey and the Turkish Academy of Sciences (see Nature 477, 131; 2011). It has also harassed and jailed individual academics and students. Now, an international network is launching a campaign to support Turkish scientists whose academic rights it considers to have been violated. The network has issued a report and this week carried out its first concerted street action, when more than 100 of its supporters joined a large protest at the opening of the trial of Büşra Ersanlı, a political scientist at Marmara University in Istanbul.
More:Turkey cracks down on academic freedom : Nature News & Comment
