Academic freedom in the Middle East is a contested and debated issue, which has caught regional and international attention. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, in general, the authoritarian regimes have all showed a certain degree of opposition to every sort of freedom, academic one not excluded, regardless of the type of regime basis they had. Freedom for academicians to inquiry, research, teach and communicate ideas or report facts without being threatened or persecuted or with the possibility of losing their position, being censored or repressed is threatened. What contributes to academic freedom violations is also that they are essential elements for the regimes to maintain their power and in addition to this issue, interstate and civil wars as well as internal disorders and external intervention can damage educational structures and institutions. Additionally, as far as the regime is concerned, a security or national threat can be a pretest for suffocate or suspend academic research and debate. Restrictions on academic freedom also regards the topics of research, which are under significant constraints, although these might be highly interesting and worth researching.
Background There are many organizations that deal with monitoring violations of academic freedom and report academicians' voices, through publishing letters directed to public figures and also directed to the international community.
Scholars at Risk Scholars at Risk is an international network hosted at New York University's New York City campus, in the United States. The aim of this organization is to support threatened scholars and promote and defend academic freedom. One of the projects of this network is the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project.
Reported cases from the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project The Academic Freedom Monitoring Project reports on attacks on academic freedom and higher education communities. It is based on robust sources of information, including reports from volunteer monitors, and are then verified. According to the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, which reports cases since 2010 until now, there are different categories of violation regarding the issue. Regarding the Middle East and Northern Africa, the AFM registers cases in: Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine (OPT), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia.
Types of violations Academic Freedom Monitor identifies different types of violations as following: Killings, violence or disappearances Wrongful imprisonment/detention Wrongful prosecution Restrictions on travel or movement Retaliatory discharge or loss of position/expulsion from study Other significant events
Committee on Academic Freedom The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) is an association which brings together scholars and informed people with an interest in the MENA region. This association is the promoter of the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has the aim to promote cooperation and communication and boost learning regarding the Middle East. One of the fields it is dealing with regards academic freedom. This association has created a Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF), which aims to remove any obstacle regarding the exchange of knowledge and any restrictions on academicians coming also from governments.
Turkey History Academic freedom in Turkey has been through a series of changes and fluctuations.Summak, M Semih. “Academic Human Rights and Freedoms in Turkey.” The Educational Forum 62, no. 1 (1997): 32–39. doi:10.1080/00131729708982678. It is often irregular, inadequate and closely tied to the politics in the country.Weiker, Walter F. “Academic Freedom and Problems of Higher Education in Turkey.” Middle East Journal 16, no. 3 (1962): 279–94.Balyer, Aydın. “Academic Freedom : Perceptions of Academics in Turkey Akademik Özgürlük : Türkiye ’ Deki Akademisyenlerin Algıları” 36, no. 162 (2011).Norris, Kristin E, Academic Freedom and University Autonomy: A comparative analysis of the Turkish higher education system. (2011). http://hdl.handle.net/1805/2486 Several reform initiatives have been taken throughout Turkey's history which aim at restructuring governance of higher education and thus affecting academic freedom.Doğan, Didem. “Academic Freedom from the Perspectives of Academics and Students: A Qualitative Study.” TeEği̇ti̇m VBi̇li̇m 41, no. 184 (2016): 25–32. doi:10.15390/EB.2016.6135. The first reform initiative was in 1933, as Malche was invited by Atatürk to restructure Istanbul University (Istanbul Darülfünun). One of the reforms that made it to the law 2252 was according universities with more freedom. In 1946, the Law Number 4936 accorded universities with unprecedented rights, as academicians were seen as guardians of democracy second to the military. The Democratic Party in 1953 passed laws that would undermine the universities' control over their budget, retirement of academicians and their employment rights. Those attacks on academic freedom were aimed at confining professors from being involved in partisan politics resulting in several cases of suspensions of academicians and denial of promotions. The 1960 coup was seen as a promise for reversal of the DP's encroachment over university autonomy, as it recruited academicians in government offices, selected to write the constitution and other vital roles. However, the 1960 coup junta surprisingly dismissed 147 academicians who were not in agreement with some members of the junta. In 1973, higher education was restructured with the increased sovereignty of the Interuniversity Council (ÜAK), while at the same time universities were given complete autonomy.
The Council of Higher Education (YÖK) The current Higher Education Law was implemented in 1981 following the 1980 coup. The law maintains that, “universities are judicial structures which are managed and supervised by the organs selected among them. University organs, academics and teaching assistants cannot be removed from their posts for no reason by authorities outside the university” (YÖK 2007).The Council of Higher Education. The Law on Higher Education 1981. The Republic of Turkey: Official Gazette No: 17506, published in English by Ankara Üniversitesi Basimevi (2000). Yet academic freedom became too dependent on The Council of Higher Education (YÖK) as the reform moved towards creating a more centralized system around the YÖK in matters regarding budgetary control, staff employment and student selection. The law defines the name, number and discipline of each faculty or vocational school. While universities can establish departments, their approval is subject to the council.
Academicians for Peace On the 11th of January 2016, a petition was released titled "We will not be a Party to This Crime". 1,128 academics from 89 universities in Turkey, and over 355 academics and researchers from abroad including figures such as Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Etienne Balibar, Immanual Wallerstein and David Harvey have initially signed a text calling on state of Turkey to end its violence and prepare negotiation conditions. The petition condemns the Turkish state's security operations in southeast Turkey which devastated the Kurdish population and to resume the peace process. In response, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan unleashed a harsh campaign vilifying the academics in at least five speeches – terming them vile, equal to terrorists, base and dark – and demanding sanctions against them. On March 15, 2016, three academics were placed in pretrial detention Muzaffer Kaya, Esra Mungan and Kıvanç Ersoy. Ersoy teaches in the mathematics department at Mimar Sinan University and Mungan in the psychology department at Boğaziçi University. Kaya was dismissed from the social work department at Nişantaşı University for signing the petition. They were detained and then jailed by a court a day after Erdoğan called for the crime of terrorism to be widened to include expression which he judges “serves the aims of terrorists,” and which would target professions such as journalists, politicians and activists. His remarks came after the March 13 bombing which killed 37 people in Ankara's city center.
The violation of academic freedom including the prosecution, dismissal, detention and public harassment of the Peace Academics has taken a turn to the worse following the July 15 coup attempt and the state of emergency that followed in Turkey. Around 822 of Academics for Peace have been put on trial, and more than 200 academics have been given prison terms, some charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" under Article 7(2). Around 549 academicians have been removed and banned from public service with the decree laws or dismissed, forced to resign or forced into retiring.
On July 26, 2019, Turkey's Constitutional Court delivered its landmark verdict which ruled that the penalization of Academics for Peace on charge of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization” has violated their freedom of expression. In response to the Constitutional Court ruling, 1,066 academics from various universities came out against the ruling in a declaration, saying the verdict is "against the public conscience." The declaration was initially released with 1,071 signatories, however, some were signatures were added without consent or repeated twice bringing the number down to 1,066. The rights of the Academics for Peace still remain violated as many have not been compensated nor have they been allowed to regain their positions.
Egypt History Egypt is one of the countries where academic freedom is not a right freely enjoyed. Since the start of the 1990s, academics in Egypt have faced several forms of repression and endured many violations such as judicial convictions, public condemnation, and physical violence from both private individuals and groups, mainly the Islamists, and government officials.Human Rights Watch. “Reading between the "Red Lines”: The Repression of Academic Freedom in Egyptian Universities.” Vol. 17, No. 6, June 2005, p. 25 On one hand, there are Egyptian state authorities using police, political appointees, and regulations and laws to control university life. On the other hand, Islamist militants are resorting to physical violence and public attacks to have a say in the content of higher education.Human Rights Watch. “Reading between the "Red Lines”: The Repression of Academic Freedom in Egyptian Universities.” Vol. 17, No. 6, June 2005, p. 25. All aspects of university life including the classroom, student activities, research, campus demonstrations were affected by government and private repression. The professors and students find themselves censored and unable to cross the “red lines” of politics, religion, and sex. Faculty appointments and promotions are controlled by the state. Student activities are limited once outside the classroom, and campus protests are often violently responded to. All these factors contribute to the deterioration of the academic freedom situation in Egypt and to the general decline of the educational environment.
Sisi's era While Article 21 of the 2014 Egyptian constitution, issued under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s rule, ensures that “the state guarantees the independence of universities, scientific and linguistic academies” and that “it commits to providing university education in accordance with global quality criteria, and to developing free university education in state universities and institutes as per the law", the Egyptian state still violates its constitutional provisions through various repressive ways in an attempt to curb academic freedom. Article 23 of the constitution claims that “the state grants the freedom of scientific research and encourages its institutions.”