Students began to demonstrate in front of the government headquarters in late September, resulting in pepper spray attacks by the police.  Leaders of the democracy movement, including professors and opposition party members, called for an occupation of the area around the headquarters to support the students.  These leaders had been advocating a peaceful civil disobedience since 2013 to fight for a genuine universal suffrage.   The police attempted to disperse the crowd by using tear-gas but people refused to leave and attracted even more people to join the occupation.  At the end, according to a survey by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, around 1.2 million people had visited the occupation sites in the 79-day demonstration.  Umbrella became a symbol of non-violent struggle because it was widely used during the occupation to protect the protestors from police’s pepper spray.

Even though the movement was unable to change China’s decision, it has inspired a whole generation of young people to understand the importance of democracy, freedom and autonomy.  After more than two years, the Hong Kong government arrested the Umbrella activists, including Benny Tai (law professor at Hong Kong University), Kin-man Chan (sociology professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong) and Yiu-ming Chu (retired pastor of Baptist Church) among others.  They are now facing three charges with maximum penalty of 7-year imprisonment for each.   Prosecuting peaceful demonstrators for democracy is meant to create chilling effect in Hong Kong.

A signature movement by scholars from the globe has been launched to support these scholars and activists:  https://sites.google.com/site/hksaaf/  Please support!

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The ISA 47 Initiative against repression of academics strongly condemns the recent wave of purge and assault on Turkish academics and expresses solidarity with those affected by this brutality.

If you have firsthand information about the details of the recent attacks, please contact us and help us publicize different aspects of this outrageous violence.

This initiative has three main aims. First, as social movement scholars, reclaiming the justice for our colleagues is a duty. We will diffuse information about repressions and threats on social scientists and social movement scholars in particular and will issue calls and statements to denounce repression. Secondly, this initiative will promote research able to provide a better understanding of the local, national and international forces and mechanisms that have produced a world in which social scientists have become targets of repression. Finally, being aware of the importance of collective actions and mobilizations, we hope this initiative contributes to a more active, efficient and visible mobilization of the academic community.

For now, we have three concrete suggestions to move forward:

1. We would like to organize panels and sessions on this topic during the conferences organized/co-organized by RC 47 and for the XIXI ISA World Congress of Sociology in Toronto;
2. We will dedicate a specific section on our website and the newsletter to this initiative;
3. Depending on the urgency of the case and the potential efficacy of our act we would publish statements and sign petitions in support of our colleagues. We plan to do this in collaboration with ISA committee on Human Rights.

This initiative can only be successful as a collective project. Therefore, we would like to invite you to send us any proposals you have in mind with regard to organization of panels and sessions. Moreover, we need your collaboration to be able to receive timely news on multiple forms of repression on academics you witness or are aware of in your surrounding e.g. your universities, cities and countries. Only in this way we could publicize the news in an effective way. We also would like to invite you to write short pieces of about 300-400 words for the newsletter. Eventually these panels, sessions and short articles could come together and make an interesting series for Open Movements. Finally, if you have any suggestions which could contribute to this initiative in any way, please let us know.

In the days following the press conference, signatories from 89 universities across Turkey faced accusations such as “supporters of terror”, “traitors”, “straw or copy intellectuals” in public statements made personally by the president and other government bodies, such as the Council of Higher Education (CoHE), the Inter-university Council, and by the presidents of various universities. In different cities campaigns against academics were held. Some universities initiated  interrogation processes on individual academics which led to different acts such as  firing and ban on entering the university campuses.  In several cases individual academics were called to the local police or the  prosecutor’s office to give their statement as to why they had signed the declaration.

After the July 15 (2016) coup attempt in Turkey, Turkish state and government have purged thousands of academics and deans from office. Academics for Peace (Barış İçin Akademisyenler) have also been victims of this. In a crackdown that rapidly spread across civil and military services, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the closure of thousands of private schools and many universities. In the last Statutory Decree which was issued on October 29, 2016, 1267 academics have been dismissed.

So far, at the international level, there have been important solidarity initiatives taken by our European colleagues in Paris, in Berlin and in Geneva. A European Committee for Solidarity with Academics for Peace and a fund to support dismissed academics are in the way of constitution. Meanwhile, since the beginning of dismissals, a solidarity fund is created in Turkey by Academics for Peace, by those who have not lost their jobs yet. For updated information on Academics for Peace see https://barisicinakademisyenler.com/english.

(Note: the original Academics for Peace website which was accessible under https://barisicinakademisyenler.net/  until late October 2016 and which was hosted by the Turkish provider turhost, appears to be offline. The new website appears to be hosted in Germany.)

State repression creates solidarity among movement participants, who justify the need for violence as a form of self-defence, or, as Donatella Della Porta puts it, violence emerges from violence. The sad reality is that the authorities often ignore peaceful, non-disruptive protests. What students have deduced from this is that unless the “normal” functioning of an unequal educational system is disrupted, then it is unlikely to change.

Sociologists have argued that political violence by protesters is rarely ever adopted overnight or consciously. Rather, in the early stages of the protest cycle, such violence is generally unplanned, small in scale and limited in scope. It often occurs as a spontaneous reaction to an escalation of force by the police or a more general closure of democratic space. Many protesters are frightened off by the escalating violence, but small groups begin to specialise in tactics that do not rely on mass support – such as more organised acts of violence. These tactical decisions shift the struggle onto a terrain that is dominated overwhelmingly by the state and its repressive apparatus.

It is the easier route for universities to say and do “security” in response to growing campus unrest. But it is also the more simplistic road. There is enough scholarship to show that this road leads nowhere. University actors must do more to break with this self-fulfilling prophecy.

For a detailed and insightful account of the myriad ways in which the policing of protest violates the rights of ordinary South Africans, see the new book by Jane Duncan (University of Johannesburg), Protest Nation: the Right to Protest in South Africa, published in September 2016 by UKZN Press.

ISA47 statement, 17.03.2016

(you can download here the pdf version)

Dear colleagues,

2016 is a frightening year for freedom, peace and social sciences. As I wrote you 5 weeks ago, instead of diffusing researchers’ work and publications, the role of an ISA Research Committee on social movements has suddenly become diffusing information on threats, imprisonments and now torture and assassination of our colleagues.

Things have only got worst ever since. The torture and murder of our colleague Giulio Regeni was a major alarm. Last week, we gathered hundreds of signatures to denounce the murder of activist Bertha Caceres and the threats to our colleague Gustavo Castro in Honduras.

This week, the Turkish government has jailed three of our colleagues from Academics for Peace, while the European Union negotiates with and support authoritarian and repressive governments.
Please read below the statement issued today by the Turkish committee Academics for Peace.

Here is a link with a petition started by colleagues in the UK: https://www.change.org/p/international-community-and-elected-representatives-stop-the-persecution-of-academics-for-peace-in-turkey
Researchers who work on and with activists and social movements are particularly at threat. The succession of the repression and violence against our colleagues in different countries demands urgent reactions by the academic community. We need to take concrete actions with four aims:

• It is urgent to take action where we are to denounce each case of repression and threat against our researchers, scholars and students.
• We have to offer concrete support to our colleagues victims of repression and violence.
• We also have to organize ourselves to be able to react faster and more efficiently to denounce repression and violence and to protect our colleagues and stand with them to oppose the repression they suffer and defend academic freedom.
• Social sciences and research on and with social movements is more necessary and important than ever. We need to analyse the local, national and international forces, supports and mechanisms that have made peaceful activists and social scientists have become targets of repressive regimes. We particularly welcome articles on these topics on our platform “Open Movements”.

ISA47 mailing list and Facebook page will welcome your ideas and proposals about concrete actions, analyses and other suggestions.

We ask the ISA to issue a clear statement to denounce the repression against the repression against Turkish scholars.

We demand truth and justice for Giulio Regeni and the liberation of Gustavo Castro in Honduras and  Esra Mungan, Kıvanç Ersoy and Muzaffer Kaya in Turkey.

For the ISA47 board,

Geoffrey Pleyers

University of Louvain, President of the ISA47 “Social Movements”

Academics for Peace, Turkey, 16.03.2016

Since the announcement of the declaration “We will not be a party to this crime” by the Academics for Peace, more than 60 people have been killed in two bombings at the heart of the capital of Turkey, Ankara. Meanwhile, under the name of military operations against the PKK, the state forces have killed hundreds of civilians in the southern part of the country and many more have been injured and forced to leave their homes.

Still, the academics persist in their call for peace while being repressed in various ways.

On March 14, a warrant was issued for the arrest of four academics who made a press declaration (dated, March 10) about the various consequences of oppressive acts carried out by the government since January 11 against the Academics for Peace. The academics Esra Mungan, Kıvanç Ersoy, Muzaffer Kaya and Meral Camcı, having read the text in the name of Academics for Peace – İstanbul, stated that many of the signatories were and are being dismissed from their universities, threatened to death, targeted through media, and that a judicial process would be launched against all of them. They also announced that they stood behind their declaration entitled “We will not be a party to this crime.”

Three of the four academics, Esra Mungan, Kıvanç Ersoy and Muzaffer Kaya, were taken under custody on March 14. Meral Camcı is abroad, and thus she was not. These three academics have been indicted for “promoting terrorist organization, acting upon the instructions of the organization,” and taken to the court on March 15. Upon the demand of the persecutor, they were sent to the court with a claim for arrest, and eventually, the court decided for arrest.

Moreover, Chris Stephenson, an academic at İstanbul Bilgi University, present at the court house for solidarity with those three, was taken under custody for carrying a notice of People’s Democratic Party (HDP) calling for Newroz celebrations. He is kept under custody on March 15 and deported on March 16. Stephenson, who is married with a Turkish national and have a 13 year old daughter told to Associated Press that there was “no offence, no trial, just an administrative decision to deport me after 25 years of residency in Turkey”

As warfare has escalated in the southern part of Turkey and spread to the other regions, calls for peace have been increasingly suppressed by the state. The pressure on the Academics for Peace is a clear indicator of the expanding pressure on opposition, which often results in serious human rights violations against oppositional voices.

We would like to inform you about the current developments in Turkey, and raise an urgent call for solidarity with the Academics for Peace against the oppression of the state, and we want the grounds for peace to be re-established before more killings take place in the country.

Social movement scholar Giulio Regeni murdered in Cairo

Geoffrey Pleyers,

President of ISA47 “Social movements”

08.02.2016

(here you can download the pdf version)

It is very sad news to learn the forced disappearance, torture and murder of our young colleague Giulio Regeni. He was conducting a doctoral research on independent trade unions in Egypt at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of our distinguished colleague Maha Abdelrahman, who will chair the ISA47 panel on social movements and repression in the Arab world at the 2016 ISA Forum in Vienna.

Peace movements and activists for democracy are the best opponents of authoritarian regimes and violence – and the answer to war, as Mary Kaldor wrote. They have suffered harsh repression in the past three years and more massively since the summer 2015. In the first five weeks of 2016, social scientists and in particular those who study social movements have also become direct targets of authoritarian governments’ repression.

In the past year, threats on social movement scholars have multiplied on various continents. In May 2015, our colleagues from ISA47 Leopoldo Múnera, professor at the National University of Colombia, and Rosana Reguillo, professor at the ITESO Guadalajara Mexico, received death threats and had to live under close police protection. In the first five weeks of the year, there has been a succession of open letters, testimonies and petitions denouncing repression against social scientists. In Turkey, a trial has started again dozens of colleagues, including many members of our ISA research committee 47, because they stood up for democracy and claim authoritarian regime or terror is not the only alternative. The forced disappearance, torture and murder of our young colleague Giulio Regeni in Egypt show us that things are getting worse every day. In 2016, to be social scientists and to study with social movements has become a risky occupation and duty (‘Beruf’ as Weber said) in many countries. Social sciences and research on and with social movements is however more necessary and important than ever.

Instead of diffusing researchers’ work and publications, the role of an ISA Research Committee on social movements has suddenly become diffusing information on threats, imprisonments and now torture and assassination of our colleagues.

The assassination of Giulio Regeni, the imprisonment of various colleagues and the threats on social sciences and research on social movements demand an urgent reaction of the academic community, and in particular of social movement scholars.

As social movement scholars, reclaiming the truth and justice for what happens to our colleague is a first duty. Our task is also to contribute to a better understanding the forms of resistance and emerging alternatives to authoritarian regime and repressive trends in more democratic countries, as well as to analyse the local, national and international forces, supports and mechanisms that have produced a world in which peaceful activists and social scientists have become targets of repressive regimes. More space and energy have to be dedicated to conducting, discussing and diffusing research on these urgent topics. ISA47 will propose additional spaces to discuss it at the next ISA Forum in July. Our platform “Open Movements” has published important analyses of repression against social movements in Egypt, Turkey, China, and Mexico and is willing to publish other publications.

Finally, as social movement scholars, we know the importance of collective action and mobilization. I hope that we will be able to take initiatives to ring the alarm bell and mobilize more broadly the academic community, starting with the International Sociological Association and our own universities, to demand truth and justice for Giulio Regeni, the liberation of our Turkish colleagues and to show that an international community of scholars stands with our colleagues, oppose the repression they suffer and defend academic freedom. Indeed, as Neil Pyper wrote, “Giulio Regeni’s murder is a direct challenge to the academic freedom

Italian translation:

http://popoffquotidiano.it/2016/02/08/giulio-regeni-vogliamo-verita-e-giustizia/

Cari colleghi dell’ISA47,

è molto triste apprendere la notizia della sparizione forzata, della tortura e dell’uccisione del nostro giovane collega Giulio Regeni. Giulio portava avanti una ricerca di dottorato presso l’Università di Cambridge a proposito dei sindacati indipendenti in Egitto, sotto la supervisione del nostro illustre collega Maha Abdelrahman, che presiederà il pannello ISA47 sui movimenti sociali e la repressione nel mondo arabo all’ISA Forum 2016 di Vienna.

I movimenti pacifisti e gli attivisti per la democrazia sono i più forti nemici dei regimi autoritari e della violenza – e la risposta alla guerra, come ha scritto Mary Kaldor. Nelle prime cinque settimane del 2016, è diventato ogni giorno più chiaro come loro siano divenuti anche i bersagli diretti della repressione dei governi autoritari. In Turchia molti dei nostri colleghi sono stati incarcerati e vari membri del nostro comitato di ricerca ISA47 sono minacciati perché sostengono che ci sia un’altra via oltre ai regimi autoritari o al terrore.

La sparizione forzata, la tortura e l’uccisione del nostro giovane collega Giulio Regeni ci mostra che le cose stanno peggiorando ogni giorno di più. Invece di diffondere il lavoro e le pubblicazioni dei ricercatori, il ruolo del comitato ISA per la ricerca sui movimenti sociali è improvvisamente diventato quello di diffondere le informazioni sulle minacce di reclusione, ed ora sulla tortura e l’uccisione dei nostri colleghi.

Come studiosi dei movimenti sociali, reclamare verità e giustizia per ciò che è accaduto al nostro collega è un dovere essenziale. Vorrei dunque incoraggiare tutti voi a leggere, firmare, sostenere e diffondere la breve dichiarazione dei nostri colleghi Anne Alexander e Maha Abdelrahman che troverete di seguito a questo messaggio.

La scomparsa di Giulio Regeni può essere una delle notizie più tristi, ma non rappresenta un caso isolato. Nelle prime cinque settimane dell’anno c’è stato un susseguirsi di chiamate, lettere, testimonianze e petizioni per denunciare la repressione contro i nostri colleghi. Essere scienziati sociali nel 2016 e lavorare con i movimenti sociali è diventato un mestiere rischioso e una vocazione (“Beruf” come direbbe Weber) in molti paesi. È tuttavia più necessario e importante che mai. Come studiosi dei movimenti sociali dobbiamo raccogliere informazioni e condurre ricerche e analisi per comprendere meglio il nostro tempo e per mostrare quali siano le forze locali, nazionali ed internazionali, le basi e i meccanismi, che hanno prodotto un mondo in cui gli attivisti per la pace e gli scienziati sociali sono diventati bersagli dei regimi repressivi supportati da alleati internazionali.

Abbiamo bisogno di dedicare più spazio ed energie nel condurre, discutere e diffondere la ricerca sulla repressione di stato nei regimi autoritari, ma anche di quella nei paesi occidentali. La piattaforma “Open Movements” ha pubblicato delle analisi importanti per quanto riguarda la repressione dello stato autoritario contro i movimenti sociali in Egitto, Turchia, Cina e Messico, tra gli altri. Sono necessarie però ulteriori analisi e dovrà essere dedicato più tempo a questi temi nei nostri incontri futuri.

Infine, come studiosi dei movimenti sociali, conosciamo l’importanza dell’azione collettiva e della mobilitazione. Spero che saremo in grado di intraprendere iniziative che facciano suonare il campanello d’allarme e di mobilitare in modo più ampio la comunità accademica, a cominciare dalla International Sociological Association e dalle nostre università, per chiedere verità e giustizia per Giulio Regeni, la liberazione dei nostri colleghi turchi e per dimostrare che una comunità internazionale di studiosi è schierata al fianco dei nostri colleghi, si oppone alla repressione che subiscono e difende la libertà accademica.

In effetti, come ha scritto Neil Pyper, “l’omicidio di Giulio Regeni è una sfida diretta alla libertà accademica”.
Geoffrey Pleyers
University of Louvain

ISA-RC47 “Social Movements”

Turkish translation: http://barisicinakademisyenler.net/node/113.html

International Sociological Association RC47’nin, İtalyan meslekdaşımız Giulio Reguini’nin Mısır’da öldürülmesi üzerine yayınladığı açık mektup

09.02.2016

International Sociological Association RC47’nin, İtalyan meslekdaşımız Giulio Reguini’nin saha çalışması için gittiği Mısır’da öldürülmesi üzerine dünya akademisyenlerine ve çalışmalarına yönelik siyasal tehditlere karşı yayınladığı açık mektuptur:

ISA47’den Sevgili Meslektaşlar,

Zorla kaybettirilen, işkence yapılıp, öldürülen genç meslektaşımız Giulio Reguini‘nin durumunu öğrenmek çok üzücü. Doktora çalışmasını Cambridge Üniversitesi’nde, 2016 ISA Forumu’nda ISA47’nin “Arap Dünyası’nda Toplumsal Hareketler ve Baskı” isimli panelinin başkanı Maha Abdelrahaman’ın yönetiminde, Mısır’daki bağımsız işçi sendikaları üzerine yapıyordu.

Mary Kaldor’un yazdığı gibi, barış hareketleri ve demokrasi eylemcileri, otoriter rejimlerin ve şiddetin en büyük düşmanıdır- ve savaşa verilecek cevaptır. 2016’nın ilk beş haftasında, her gün biraz daha açığa çıktığı gibi, bunlar, aynı zamanda otoriter hükümetlerin baskısının da doğrudan hedefi haline geldi. Türkiye’de bir kaç meslektaşımız hapse atıldı ve otoriter rejimler ve savaştan başka yöntemler olduğunu söyledikleri için ISA Araştırma Komitesi 47’nin çeşitli üyeleri de tehdit ediliyor. Genç meslektaşımız Giulio Reguini’nin zorla kaybettirilmesi, işkenceden geçirilip öldürülmesi durumun her gün daha kötüye gittiğini gösteriyor.

Araştırmacıların çalışma ve yayınlarını duyurmak yerine, Toplumsal Hareketler için ISA Araştırma Komitesi’nin rolü, aniden, hapsedilmeler, tehditler ve şimdi de işkence ve meslektaşlarımızın katledilmesini haber vermeye dönüştü. Toplumsal hareketler uzmanları olarak meslektaşlarımıza ne olduğu hakkında gerçek ve adalet istemek bir ilk görevdir. Bu nedenle hepinizi, meslektaşımız Anne Alexander’ın yazdığı aşağıdaki kısa bildirgeyi okuyup, imzalayıp, duyurmak için yüreklendirmek istiyorum.

Giulio Reguini’nin zorla kaybettirilmesi en üzücülerinden biri olmakla beraber tekil bir olay değil. Yılın daha ilk beş haftasında meslektaşlarımıza karşı yapılan baskıları kınamak üzere, peş peşe bir dizi çağrı, mektup, tanıklık ve dilekçe geldi. 2016’da sosyal bilimci olmak ve toplumsal hareketler üzerine çalışmak riskli bir uğraş ve görev (Weber’in kullandığı sözcükle ‘beruf’- çağrı) haline geldi. Ama her zamankinden daha da gerekli ve önemli. Toplumsal hareketlerin uzmanları olarak yaşadığımız dönemi daha iyi anlamak ve otoriter rejimlerin, barışçıl eylemciler ile toplum bilimcileri hedef haline getirdiği, uluslararası müttefik yardımı ile baskıcı rejimleri yaratan yerel, ulusal ve uluslararası güçlere, destek ve mekanizmalara dikkat çekmeliyiz.

Otoriter rejimlerdeki devlet baskısına, ama aynı zamanda Batılı ülkelerdekilere de, daha fazla zaman/mekan/ ve enerji adamak zorundayız. “Açık Hareketler” (Open Movements) platformu, diğerlerinin yanı sıra, Mısır, Türkiye, Çin ve Meksika gibi ülkelerde toplumsal hareketlere karşı otoriter devlet baskısına ilişkin önemli çözümlemeler yayımladı. Daha da çok çözümlemeye ihtiyaç var ve gelecek toplantılarda bu konulara daha fazla yer ayırmalıyız.

Ve nihayet, toplumsal hareketler uzmanları olarak, kolektif eylem ve harekete geçmenin önemini biliyoruz. Umarım ki, Uluslararası Sosyoloji Derneği (ISA) ve üniversitelerimiz ile başlayarak Giulio Reguini için gerçek ve adalet, Türkiyeli meslektaşlarımız için özgürlük talep edip alarm zillerini çalmak için girişimlerde bulunur, akademik toplulukta daha kapsamlı seferberlik yapar, uluslararası akademisyenler cemaati olarak meslektaşlarımızın yanında olduğumuzu, maruz kaldıkları baskılara karşı çıktığımızı ve üniversiteler için özgürlüğü savunduğumuzu ortaya koyabiliriz. Gerçekten de Neil Pyper’ın yazdığı gibi, “Giulio Reguini öldürülmesi, akademik özgürlüğe yapılan bir meydan okumadır.”

Geoffrey Pleyers
Louvain Üniversitesi
ISA-RC47 “Social Movements”