SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project investigates and reports attacks on higher education with the aim of raising awareness, generating advocacy, and increasing protection for scholars, students, and academic communities. Learn more.
Results
On April 5, 2019, Turkey’s 25th, 27th and 32nd Heavy Penal Courts reportedly convicted and sentenced five academic personnel to fifteen months imprisonment on charges of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization.” The charges are in connection to their endorsement of ...
On April 4, 2019, the Istanbul 28th Heavy Penal Court sentenced Can Irmak Özinanır, a former research assistant Ankara University, to one year, ten months, and fifteen days in prison on a charge of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization.” The charge is in apparent retaliation for the scholar’s endorsement of a petition criticizing state and military actions in predominantly Kurdish areas of southeast Turkey.
On April 3, 2019, state authorities reportedly detained five University of Dongola students in apparent retaliation for their participation in a strike.
On April 2, 2019, police violently clashed with Copperbelt University (CBU) students during a campus protest after several students were barred from taking exams. A few days later, the Higher Education Minister of Zambia announced the indefinite closure of CBU. On ...
On April 1, 2019, Chinese authorities blocked human rights lawyer Chen Jiangang from leaving the country to attend an academic fellowship program in the United States.
On March 28, 2019, authorities reportedly arrested King Saud University law professor Anas al-Mazrouee, shortly after he denounced the detention of women’s rights and human rights activists in the country. Al-Mazrouee spoke at the International Book Exhibition in Riyadh about Saudi ...
On March 27, 2019, Turkey’s 27th Heavy Penal Court convicted and sentenced Boğaziçi University professors Feyza Akınerdem and Neş’e Bilgin to fifteen months in prison and Ali Kerem Saysel to two years and six months imprisonment on charges of “propagandizing ...
On March 25, 2019, the 27th Heavy Penal Court sentenced four academics to one year and three months imprisonment, and one academic to two years and six months imprisonment, all on charges of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization.” The charges ...
On March 25, 2019, Tsinghua University (THU) suspended constitutional law professor Xu Zhangrun and placed him under investigation after he published a series of essays critical of China’s Communist party leadership. In July 2018, Xu published an essay that warned of ...
On March 24, 2019, authorities reportedly surrounded and prevented Al-Azhar University students from leaving campus in an apparent effort to restrict a peaceful protest over the university’s response to the reported rape of a classmate. On March 18, a student was ...