2022

“WE WILL NOT STOP.” Despite historic challenges, we learned this year that our network is stronger than ever. We have helped more scholars than ever find safety. More institutions are coming forward, saying “Yes, we can do more.” More individuals are asking “How can we help?” And we are just getting started.

Last year began for SAR responding to the tragedy in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has worked to erase two decades of educational progress. They have since all but banned women and girls from education, and driven thousands into exile, including many scholars and students. SAR added staff and expedited processing; we have arranged more than 60 positions for Afghans so far–along with 178 dependents–and we won’t stop until we have created opportunities for everyone we can.

Mid-year SAR responded to the Russian invasion by preparing to meet the needs of scholars and students fleeing the war in Ukraine, as well as Russians opposed to the war fleeing the Putin regime’s domestic crackdown. Learning from prior crises, SAR Europe together with the Philipp Schwartz Initiative and European University Association launched MSCA4Ukraine, a new EU-funded fellowship scheme to support hundreds of Ukrainian scholars in exile in Europe, including support for them to return and to rebuild Ukraine as soon as conditions permit.

Of course, throughout the year we continued to support colleagues attacked by governments and non-state actors around the world, including Yemen, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Cameroon, and beyond. And as the year came to a close, massive protests were just beginning in Iran. Scholars, students, and university campuses were again targeted with tear gas, bullets, and mass arrests, all because the regime is afraid of young women thinking and sharing their ideas. And as with earlier crises, SAR will be there when we are inevitably called to help.

Throughout the year, SAR members and partners responded to these challenges, and we are so grateful. Together, we helped arrange 171 positions for threatened colleagues–more than any prior year. Faculty and student advocates helped win the release of imprisoned students and scholars in Egypt and Bahrain, while ensuring that those still detained are not forgotten. With partners in the new Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas (CAFA), we pressed the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to adopt new ​​Principles of Academic Freedom and Autonomy, a milestone document that will anchor regional advocacy for years to come. We strengthened and grew our network, and together demonstrated through our words and our deeds that we will not stop, we will persist in doing everything we can to defend the right to think, question, and share ideas. 

It is with the deepest gratitude to all our SAR network members, partners, and supporters that I share with you this summary of our collective accomplishments over this past year. We could not do this without you, and I look forward to doing even more together in the years ahead. 

In solidarity and with deep gratitude, 

ROB QUINN

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is an international network of over 650 higher education institutions and associations in 43 countries, 16 national sections (with several more forming), and 14 partnerships with leading higher education networks, that all voluntarily associate themselves with SAR and help extend SAR-related activities to every region of the world.

All network members share SAR’s mission of protecting threatened scholars and promoting academic freedom. Together, we meet this mission through three core activity areas: protection (casework or direct assistance); advocacy (campaigns for individuals and academic freedom generally); and research and learning (publications, conferences, workshops, and trainings). Some network members and partners are active in all three areas, while others might be active in only one area (for example, by hosting a threatened scholar or by leading a SAR-affiliated student seminar), but SAR is the only group that combines these three areas of work under a single, self-identified community of institutions and individuals.

The need for SAR’s work has increased exponentially, placing growing demands on our services. Populist and authoritarian regimes continue to grow in number and are actively working to restrict academic freedom, while ongoing refugee crises, armed conflicts, and climate disasters contribute to record numbers of scholars seeking help, with over 1,000 requests under review or receiving services.

The higher education community is responding and our global network continues to grow, meaning more opportunities to help scholars, raise awareness, and demand greater protection for universities, scholars, students, and academic freedom.

This year’s Free to Think report spotlighted 24 countries and territories of concern when it came to academic freedom.

SAR Sections, Partners & Hubs

The SAR network is increasingly organized into national sections—geographic groupings of higher education institutions organized for the specific purpose of participating in SAR-related activities.

These are joined by partner networks— formal associations between SAR and pre-existing networks of higher education institutions. All of these are represented through SAR’s International Advisory Committee (IAC), which is the voice of the network membership to SAR’s governing board. The IAC embeds an international perspective into SAR’s structure and governance and provides a forum and communication channel for all involved. This allows for greater coordination of activities across regions, more sharing of best practices leading to improved support for scholars, and more opportunities to advance academic freedom worldwide. Most recently, these have been joined by regional advocacy “hubs” in Africa and Latin America, made up of researchers and academic staff collaborating on projects aimed at increasing awareness and protection of academic freedom.

SAR Sections & Partner Networks

SAR network members are increasingly organized into national SAR “sections.”

Partner Networks

SAR has arrangements with many major higher education associations including, for example, the European University Association and the European Association for International Education.

An International Advisory Committee (IAC)

The IAC is comprised of representatives of the sections and partner networks serves as the voice of the network membership and advises the SAR staff and board on SAR policies and programming.

SAR’s advocacy work increases protection for at-risk scholars by documenting the global phenomenon of attacks on higher education communities and seeking implementation of additional protections for academic freedom.

Free to Think 2022, the annual report of SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, documents 391 attacks on university communities in 65 countries. Volunteer monitors throughout SAR’s global network contribute by submitting data and by supporting advocacy around the report. Since 2011, SAR has documented 2,481 incidents involving 3,247 attacks on higher education in 123 countries. SAR-affiliated legal clinics increase monitoring coverage while training students on academic freedom and human rights. Students produce reports on specific incidents involving attacks on higher education and analyze country conditions relating to academic freedom. Over the last seven years, 

students in 43 SAR clinics helped prepare academic freedom reports on Bahrain, Belarus, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela for submission to national and international human rights bodies.

Our efforts to nurture increased monitoring, advocacy, and organizing in different regions continue. Exceptional progress has been made this year in the Americas. Our previously established “Americas hub” helped draft and supported the adoption by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of a new set of Principles of Academic Freedom and Autonomy. The hub has since reconstituted itself as the Coalition for Academic Freedom in the Americas (CAFA), underscoring the unity of present and future partners as a joint enterprise. As CAFA, the group was selected by the IACHR to serve as a member of a

Specialized Academic Network to support and inform the IACHR’s efforts to implement protections for academic freedom in the region. This Specialized Network was established in 2021, with SAR and CAFA partners as inaugural members. The invitation to engage for a second year and maintain our partnership with the IACHR is a significant positive sign for CAFA–and SAR–in the Americas going forward. 

UN Universal Periodic Review

The United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is the process by which the human rights records of each of the 193 UN Member States are reviewed by the other Member States, with formal and informal opportunities for input from civil society. SAR routinely participates in the UPR process as part of an effort to establish greater awareness within the international community of the problem of attacks on higher education. This past year, SAR made submissions, including Academic Freedom Monitoring Project data, regarding Brazil, India (in partnership with SAR’s legal clinic at McGill University’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism), Indonesia (in partnership with the Indonesian Caucus for Academic Freedom – KIKA), and Pakistan. In August 2022, SAR attended the 41st UPR pre-sessions at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, joined by a colleague from KIKA, who spoke on the pattern of repression targeting outspoken scholars and students in Indonesia. 

Students

Students participating in Student Advocacy Seminars play an increasingly important role in SAR’s advocacy work. Seminar students develop research and leadership skills while advocating on behalf of scholars and students identified by SAR’s Scholars in Prison Project. 

Over the last eight years, students at 42 institutions in Austria, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States helped SAR campaign for 20 imprisoned scholars and students from Bahrain, Belarus, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. Over that same period, SAR has seen the release or improvement in conditions of detention for the subjects of student advocacy campaigns from Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, and South Sudan. 

Seminar participants put their advocacy skills into practice at SAR’s annual Student Advocacy Day events, which took place in Canada, Europe, and the United States. In Canada and Europe, where events were organized by University of British Columbia, Canada, and Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, respectively, students presented their research to peers and civil society, and participated in online workshops on best practices in advocacy. In the United States, 31 students and faculty held in-person 17 meetings with members of U.S. Congress in Washington, DC, regarding wrongfully imprisoned scholars Ahmadreza Djalali, Ahmed Samir Santawy, Ilham Tohti, Marfa Rabkova, Nasser bin Ghaith, Rahile Dawut, and Patrick Zaki. In meetings, the students first shared case history, described SAR’s work, and explained why they, as students, care about these scholars’ well-being. Then, presenting specific recommendations, they asked their representatives to act in support of these scholars, too. In early 2023, Student Advocacy Day sessions tailored to national and regional contexts will take place in person, including in Ottawa, Canada, and in Washington, DC.

An inaugural Student Advocacy Seminar end-of-year report details the research and advocacy work of over 320 students at 16 universities in 8 different countries during the 2021-2022 academic year. Participants raised awareness about 10 Scholars in Prison Project cases, ranging from East Asia to Central Europe to the Middle East. During the year, seminars ran social media campaigns, held public events, and organized meetings with public officials to demand global action.

Scholars in Prison

We continue to advocate and raise awareness about imprisoned scholars and students. 

Scholars Released: This past year, SAR welcomed the release from prison of three Scholars in Prison. In December 2021, Patrick George Zaki, a postgraduate student researching Women and Gender Studies at the University of Bologna, Italy, was released from prison in Egypt. He remains in-country, facing charges in apparent retaliation for his peaceful human rights research. In February 2022, electrical engineering scholar Khalil al-Halwachi was released after serving seven years of a ten-year prison sentence in Bahrain. And most recently, Mr. Ahmed Samir Santawy was released in July on a presidential pardon; he had been held for 18 months. Mr. Santawy is a postgraduate student at Central European University, Austria, and studies women’s reproductive rights in Egypt. Many SAR network members and partners, including student advocacy seminars, legal clinics, and sections took part in advocating on Mr. Santawy’s behalf. Our work continues, though; as of this writing, Mr. Santawy remains unable to travel to Austria to continue his studies. 

Key Actions

• Global: In November 2021, SAR participated in a Congressional briefing on Imprisoned Writers, Scholars, and Journalists, organized by the US Congress’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. The briefing featured witnesses from PEN America, Reporters Without Borders, and SAR (all partners in the Defending Freedoms Project, housed within the Lantos Commission) and provided an opportunity to urge Members of Congress to act in support of prisoners of conscience. copies of the book to the Embassy and consulates of India to the United States.
• Bahrain:  In July, Bahraini scholar Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace marked one year on hunger strike. Dr. Al-Singace was arrested in 2011 and has since been held in Bahrain’s Jau Prison. He began refusing sustenance to protest his ill-treatment, and to demand the return of confiscated research. Dr. Al-Singace’s health has deteriorated rapidly while on hunger strike, and Bahraini authorities have not provided him with appropriate medical care. We continue to call for Dr. Al-Singace’s immediate release so he can receive the medical care he urgently needs. In August, we joined 14 organizations in calling Bahraini authorities to release Dr. Al-Singace as he reached the 400th day of his hunger strike.
• Belarus: a SAR sent a letter to authorities in Belarus expressing grave concern over the 15 year prison sentence given to Marfa Rabkova and calling for her immediate release. After nearly two years in pretrial detention, on September 6, 2022, the Minsk city court sentenced Ms. Rabkova, a student at European Humanities University in Lithuania, to 15 years in prison on 13 charges for her nonviolent expressive activity and work monitoring nationwide protests calling for Alexander Lukashenko’s resignation.
• China: SAR’s Advocacy Director wrote an afterword for Jewher Ilham’s recently-released book, Because I Have To, about maintaining strength while advocating for her father, wrongfully imprisoned scholar Ilham Tohti.
• Iran: Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali’s case remains of grave concern to the SAR network. In May, the spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary stated that Dr. Djalali would be hanged once the review of his case has been completed. We sent a letter to the United Nations, European Union, and other officials urging them to do everything in their power to halt the imminent execution and secure the immediate release of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali.
• Egypt: We have taken numerous actions in support of wrongfully imprisoned Egyptian students Ahmed Samir Santawy and Patrick George Zaki. In the fall, following the publication of this letter in support of Mr. Zaki, a University of Bologna postgraduate student, he was released from pretrial detention. On January 25, SAR gave a presentation at the Central European University conference on Ahmed Samir Santawy, a CEU postgraduate student serving a four-year prison sentence in Egypt. We signed a joint statement with over 60 organizations calling on President Abdelfattah Al-Sisi to quash the verdicts against Mr. Santawy and six other human rights defenders. In advance of Mr. Zaki’s trial on February 1, we sent a letter to Egyptian authorities and organized a social media campaign, in coordination with the release of SAR’s Free to Think podcast episode 19, which discusses the cases of both Mr. Zaki and Mr. Santawy.
• Ukraine: iIn March, as part of a SAR-wide effort to support members of the higher education community impacted by the war in Ukraine, Scholars at Risk issued a statement of solidarity, in conjunction with SAR sections and partner networks, with the people of Ukraine and with people around the world, including in Russia, in condemning the ongoing acts of aggression against the Ukrainian people and territory by the agents and armed forces of the Russian Federation. Scholars at Risk signed an open letter, endorsed by nearly 50 NGOs, calling on Member States of the United Nations to take action to suspend the rights of the Russian Federation as a member of the UN Human Rights Council for committing widespread, gross, and systematic violations of international human rights law in Ukraine and in Russia.

SAR’s research and learning work aims to increase security for scholars and universities by strengthening collective understanding of academic freedom and related higher education values among states, higher education communities, and the public.

This year SAR brought together its first cohort of academic freedom fellows, through the Mellon Foundation supported Mellon/SAR Academic Freedom Fellowship. The fellowship program provides a research stipend and supportive professional community for researchers to develop and share related work on academic freedom and/or related higher education values leading to a publishable article; new course offering; workshop, webinar, or conference presentation; or other identified end product. The 2021-2022 fellowship supported projects investigating the relationship between academic freedom and the national STEM research production; academic freedom amid extreme violence in Colombia and Brazil; grassroots resistance movements to academic freedom violations in Russia; teaching LGBTQ rights in faith-based universities in Kenya; and a comparative analysis of legal frameworks related to academic freedom in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

SAR continued to disseminate and promote its publications. Promoting Higher Education Values: A Guide for Discussion explores the meaning of academic freedom, why it matters, and how to respond when it is threatened. Promoting Higher Education Values: Workshop Supplement offers exercises and advice for self-study by individuals or groups.

Building on these publications, SAR and partners at the University of Oslo co-created an online course on academic freedom called Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters. The course has now engaged more than 5,600 participants from 142+ countries–adding among its moderated runs a private session for students across SAR’s Student Advocacy Seminars–reflecting the international demand for and curricular value of information about academic freedom. 

SAR Europe promotes SAR’s mission in Europe, seeking to strengthen European policymaking on academic freedom and improve support for at-risk scholars in all parts of Europe.

In 2021-22, SAR Europe organized regular convenings of the European Coordinating Committee for Academic Freedom Advocacy to share expertise across countries and institutions. The Committee grew to include experts with organizational bases in 18 European countries, and representatives from 4 organizations with Europe-wide membership. With input from committee members, SAR Europe contributed policy briefings to the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the European Commission, and provided presentations to policymakers with a view to informing Europe’s legal and policy norms as they relate to academic freedom. These included responses to the European Commission consultations on the 2022 Rule of Law Report, a briefing to the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, a briefing to the Science Advisors of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of EU member States and other important opportunities.

Inspireurope Philipp Schwartz Initiative Forum, May 2022, Berlin. Photo ©David Ausserhofer/Humboldt Foundation
In January 2022, the EU-funded Inspireurope initiative, led by SAR Europe, contributed to the development of Guidelines for the inclusion of researchers at risk. The Guidelines were published by the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions with the goal of widening access for researchers at risk to EU fellowship schemes. In April 2022, Inspireurope published Inspireurope Recommendations: Expanding Opportunities in Europe for Researchers at Risk, a policy report with eight concrete recommendations for institutional, national and European actors. The report was launched at the Inspireurope-Philipp Schwartz Initiative forum held in Berlin in May 2022.

SAR Europe, together with Inspireurope partners, continued to advocate for an EU fellowship scheme for researchers at risk and to support SAR sections in Europe in efforts to develop national support schemes in their countries. While efforts towards a general EU-wide scheme for researchers at risk are ongoing, in July 2022 SAR Europe at Maynooth University, together with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the European University Association entered into an agreement with the European Commission to build and implement MSCA4Ukraine, a 25 million euro EU funded scheme supporting displaced researchers from Ukraine. The scheme will be launched in September 2022.