Erkan İbiş, the Rector of Ankara University, applied to the court for a warrant of access block to the tweets about him belonging to Dr Cenk Yiğiter, Lecturer in Public Law, who is one of the expelled academics as a result of a recent state of emergency decree passed by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The court has considered the respective tweets within the right to freedom of expression. “The court orders that the motion of access block for the given URL addresses is DISMISSED on the conviction that the respective contents are not a violation of personal rights but have the characteristics of news, comment, or criticism,” read the verdict by the criminal judge.
RESPONSE FROM CENK YİĞİTER
Rector İbiş also previously referred Dr Yiğiter to the Disciplinary Board because, in an e-mail group, he brought into question the fact that İbiş is going to lecture at the so-called AKP Politics Academy. Although Yiğiter was dismissed from the University, as a result of the investigation conducted, he was given a reprimand for “discrediting the rector”.
“I am expelled from the University, yet I am still receiving penalties,” Yiğiter told soL News on the issue. “Before I was expelled, I had been indicted for bringing into question the fact that Rector İbiş is going to lecture at the AKP Politics Academy and for reporting this to the Prime Ministry Communications Centre. [...] After I had been expelled, I was given a reprimand. And now my posts on Twitter are being attempted to get blocked. So, if I hadn’t been expelled, I would have been indicted continually and would end up with a penalty. This is the point where Erkan İbiş should correct his mistakes; he should resign immediately and he should join the AKP to engage in politics.”
The following are the tweets of Dr Yiğiter that the court acquitted: “Turkey is now ruled by a ‘trolldome’ as an institution and Erkan İbiş @profdrErkanibis is the ‘head troll’ of Turkey academies.”; “Wood-joiner, putty-maker @profdrErkanibis made history as the university-slaughterer. This won’t be forgotten; he will account for it before the law.”
STATEMENT BY FACULTY MEMBERS
As the reactions and protests against the expulsion of 330 academics from universities are growing, a statement that was made by the faculty members of Ankara University Faculty of Languages, History and Geography (DTCF) revealed the heavy accounts of the expulsion.
The statement titled “Accounts of the Destruction by the Expulsions upon State of Emergency Decrees” emphasises that the 66 modules taught in the DTCF are left without lecturers as 38 undergraduate and 89 postgraduate theses are left without supervisors. A statement on behalf of Ankara University Department of Psychology also reacted to the expulsions in the Department.
Announcing that Assoc. Prof. Banu Yılmaz and research fellows Ercan Şen and Merve Fidan were dismissed from their civil services, “As members of Ankara University, DTCF, Department of Psychology, we are struggling in embracing these incidents,” read the statement. “Banu Yılmaz has worked devotedly for many years with no thought of personal gain in order to rehabilitate the emotional and psychological damage caused by natural disasters and human-related traumatic experiences both at home and abroad.”
Another statement against the expulsions has been made by the Middle East Technical University (METU) Constituents, which is formed by Association of METU Academic Members (ÖED) and the Union of Education and Science Workers’ of Turkey (Eğitim-Sen). “Rectors and deans are trying to shift off the responsibility to the government and the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) to the universities. This process is destroying the deep-rooted academic accumulation of our country,” said the METU Constituents.
