Statement of Academic Fatma Gök

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We are publishing the statement of retired Prof. Dr. Fatma Gök from the Faculty of Education of Boğaziçi University, who has been charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" for having signed the declaration entitled "We will not be a party to this crime" prepared by the Academics for Peace and had her hearing at the İstanbul 32nd Heavy Penal Court.

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The Honorable 32. Istanbul Criminal Court,

The reason I am being tried here today is that I am being charged with engaging in terrorist propaganda for having signed the statement "We shall not be party to this crime" (also known as the Peace Statement). This accusation, which would not have been considered even in the most minimal of those climes where democracy holds sway, is a sad case which will go down in the history of world democracy. Many of our colleagues who were teaching staff have been sacked from their university jobs, their houses and offices have been raided by the police and investigations have been brought against each of us; many of us are facing court cases for having signed the Statement. Although there is only one common statement in question, it is incomprehensible that each one of us is being tried individually.

I have been working as a faculty member for more than 30 years, the last two being after my retirement. I started to work at the Bogazici University after obtaining my Ph.D. in Educational Sciences, Pedagogy and Educational Policies from Columbia University in the United States, on a scholarship from the Turkish state. I became a full professor in 1999. Before this, I got my undergraduate and master's degrees from the Ankara University Educational Sciences Faculty, and worked for three years for the Ministry of Education Planning, Research and Coordination Office, while I taught part time at a lycee in Ankara.

Actually, my engagement in learning and teaching had started way before I chose teaching and education as a career. As one of the eight children of a teacher who had been able to reach the Pazarören Village Institute (boarding schools for village children where they graduated as teachers; pedagogy as well as basic agricultural and other skills were offered) in the Anatolia of the 1940's, where poverty was rampant, I learned at a very early age that unless quality education is offered for free and as a basic right to every one, the poor and the disadvantaged would never be able to benefit from the right to an education on an equal basis. In my professional career as an educationalist I learned, both as a result of my research on teaching experiences worldwide and as a result of my encounters with my own students, that children whose language of instruction was not their mother tongue and those who grew up in conflict areas, can not benefit on an equal basis from formal education, and in many cases this means they receive no education at all.

According to the report on "Quality Education 2018" published by the World Economic Forum, Turkey came 99th among 137 countries. This list is compiled according to such criteria as the appropriateness of the career orientation offered to the students, the foundations of academic work, the percentage, within the national budget, of the money allocated to education. Turkey lags behind many countries in the budget share of education. An important part of our demand for peace is to see to it that the necessary funds for a proper nationwide education are provided, so that this dark picture is altered.

In an article I wrote in 2013, I said, "It would be correct to qualify universities as institutions for seeking out the truth. Promoting critical learning, encouraging science and sharing and disseminating the newly acquired knowledge with the people, are activities directly connected with the search for truth."

The search for truth consists, in part, of not turning a blind eye towards the injustices which we witness. This includes those perpetrated by the security forces of the state. Signing the Peace Statement is in fact just such a stand. Clearly, a search for truth demands a social climate and culture predicated on freedom. A petition asking for the right of citizens to live in peace cannot constitute a crime in any minimally democratic social climate. On the contrary, it is a call for establishing and safeguarding peace.

I define my identity as one encircled by human values, upholding the freedom of women and social humanitarianism. No one and no region should suffer from discrimination; geography should not be a fate. I cannot accept people's basic rights to be violated due to their identities or due to where they happen to live. Nor can I accept my colleagues being prevented from carrying out their professions.

The truth which has been voiced in the Statement has to do with the weeks long curfews which violated basic human rights in the regions where Kurds live. I signed the Statement as a way to create a public awareness and as an urgent petition to the state, of which I am a citizen, to turn away from this destructive policy, towards an end to the violence and the establishment of a lasting peace. The establishment of a just and lasting peace would be an important step towards both the solution of the Kurdish problem without armed conflict, and also one for the solution of other problems leading to social strains. The number of signatories of this Statement has reached 2212.

Another important aspect of the petition is its being a demand of the citizens from their state, to find and prosecute those members of the security forces who committed human rights violations. The violations mentioned in the Statement, such as using heavy armaments in residential quarters, violations of security of life and limb, as well as the violation of freedom from torture and maltreatment, are all basic rights enshrined in the constitution as well as the treaties to which Turkey is party. These demands are part of our responsibility as citizens.

I cannot understand how the exposure of human rights violations can be terrorist propaganda. In a news broadcast by the BBC Turkish service on the 27th of December 2015, I could hear the uncle of the three-month old baby Miray, who was shot dead in Cizre. He was saying, "It is enough. In this house I have lost my 3 months old niece and my 80 years old father. Stop this war before it gets out of hand, before other babies or people die. There should be peace now."

Mehmet İnan is Taybet İnan's son. Taybet Inan, 55, mother of 11, was shot on the 20th of December 2015, and her remains could not be moved but stayed on the street for a whole week. Mehmet Inan says that his mother was shot as she was returning home from visiting a neighbor and continues, "My uncle ran to her aid but he was also shot in the courtyard of the house. He died of hemorrhaging, after waiting for 20 hours for the ambulance to come. My father Halit Inan was also shot at and wounded while he tried to recover my mother's remains. Fortunately his wound was not severe. We talked to the prosecutor and 155 (the police), they told us we could come out with a white flag and claim her remains but even then we came under fire. On the seventh day my mother's brother said he would go for her whatever happened, and finally we were able to take her in."

Are we being prosecuted because we did not need any evidence to believe that the 3 months old baby Miray, her 80 years old grandfather Ramazan and 55 years old Taybet Inan had not entered into an armed clash with the security forces?

The state should approach each individual on an equal basis, should not discriminate on the basis of geographical, ethnic, religious or other reasons; the state should not violate the inalienable rights with which we are born. I signed this petition thinking, "What if we had witnessed this kind of treatment in Istanbul or Ankara - would we have kept quiet about it?" I would like the Honorable Prosecutor, and you the Honorable judges, to also think about this. Is it acceptable that, just because somewhere there may be armed persons, the lives of all the civilians in that neighborhood, or district, or in that city, can be put in danger, their houses demolished by heavy artillery, themselves be kept without basic necessities, that their rights to schooling and health services be suspended for many days?

It can be said that in an armed conflict there may be unavoidable deaths. However, neither before nor after this petition was made public, did I hear of any official statement regarding the causes of the civilian deaths, or even about any investigation into this matter. On the contrary, where there were curfews without end, members of parliament, the press or independent fact-finding missions were prohibited from entering the affected areas.

Clearly there can be undesired consequences of armed confrontations, but how much of this are we willing to accept? Why do we have to accept living with such confrontations? Why do we become inured to living with all this killing around us? Is it not our duty to try to put an end to such confrontations?

According to the report of the Human rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV), between 16 August 2015 - 16 August 2017, there were 252 instances of open-ended curfews being imposed in 45 districts in 11 provinces, affecting the basic rights of at least 1 million 809 thousand people. Within this period, at least 321 civilians, 79 of whom were children, and 71 of whom were women, lost their lives. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights "Report on the state of human rights in Southeastern Turkey from 2015 July to December 2016," the number of deaths occurring in the course of security operations within this period is put at 2000, according to the information garnered by the Commissariat from various sources. In the same report, it is stated that the government sources claim this number to be 323 civilians and 799 members of security forces. (The URL's of national and international reports and findings are provided in Annex 1 of this deposition.)

I am a scientist, an educationalist, and my priority is therefore human beings.Whatever the problem may be, I am for solving it peacefully, without killing or harming anyone and by using democratic means. In a country where coffins keep being transported East and West, North and South and mourning and tears hold sway, there can be happiness for none of us. This peace petition expresses a demand for an end to conflict, so that no one will be killed and so that a lasting peace can be built. I cannot think of a happiness more precious than regarding the brilliance of the joy of life in the eyes of children, in the way they can look forward to a hopeful and secure future and in human life per se.

As a faculty member teaching sociology of education, I know that no change comes about by itself. It is here that the responsibility of the scientist comes to the fore. The repression faced by the Academics for Peace, signatories of the Peace Statement, has attracted worldwide attention and many academic institutions have expressed their concern. I would like to mention here the letter addressed by the Chairperson of the World Comparative Education Council to the (then) Prime Minister in 2016, regarding the repressive measures against the signatories. (I am an active member and chairperson of the Peace Education working group and was the Vice Chairperson between 2010-2013, of this Council, which is a focal point for educationalists from 44 countries.) In the letter it is made clear that such activities (as the Peace Statement) are among the natural functions of members of the scientific community. The letter is provided in the annexes of my deposition.

Under certain conditions, especially in periods where democracy is suspended, it may be dangerous to seek the truth and to spread it. The history of democracy world wide tells the stories of politicians, intellectuals, scientists and people of conscience who have undergone repression under authoritarian regimes for demanding justice and equality. It is a part of the responsibility of the scientist to seek the truth, as I mentioned in the beginning of my deposition.

I read the indictment in great wonder. I remembered Franz Kafka and George Orwell with deep sadness. The quotation by the Prosecution of Bese Hozat's 27 December 2015 remarks, presented as "evidence" [for having received instructions from the PKK], made me bitterly think how Aziz Nesin [a world famous Turkish satirist] would have reacted had he been alive. I must say I do not know Bese Hozat and I had not seen these remarks in the press; I learned about them via the indictment. I find it difficult to understand why one needs to look for a different source of inspiration for the 1128 academics to raise their voices regarding an issue in their own country and in their own time, other than their own intelligence and their own conscience. I am reminded of the 12 September coup, in the aftermath of which the universities were put under the tutelage of a "Higher Educational Council."

Regarding the human rights violations under the curfews imposed in Sur, in Cizre, Nusaybin, Silvan and Silopi, many reports have been drafted by national and international rights organizations which lend further strength to the misgivings voiced in the Peace Statement. I would like to call your attention to these reports. It is a bitter fact that we are being tried not because we have committed any crime, but for making public the rights violations and crimes recorded in these reports.

I have mentioned violations of human rights. One aspect which was a determining factor for me to sign the Peace Statement was the situation of the children in the conflict areas and the violation of their rights to education. The right to education is a human right, and curfews going on for months have clearly violated this right. Conflict areas afford the worst conditions for meeting children's material needs; moreover children are thus deprived of quality teaching and educational possibilities, as well as their psychological and emotional needs. For children to know that their family members are exposed to violence, or for the children to experience violence at first hand, is extremely detrimental to their emotional and bodily health. There is a huge body of scientific literature citing the negative effects of such painful experiences on the lives future generations. It is traumatic for children to see or know that their family members or neighbors are under danger from conflict situations. According to the information gathered by the Human Rights Association (Turkey), in the provinces, districts and villages of Diyarbakir, Mardin, Sirnak, Hakkari, Van. Mus and Batman, thousands of children have been deprived of their rights to a school education from 16 August 2015 to 8 January 2016. The Ministry of National Education has not taken any measures to alleviate the situation and to protect the children's rights; on the contrary they have ordered the teachers in Cizre and Silopi to leave their posts. All of this has been reported in the daily news. The number of students and teachers, who have been affected by the schools being closed down in the curfew areas, are presented in Annex 3 to this deposition.

The first thing we teach undergraduates in their first year at the Educational Sciences Department is the principle of the best interest of the child. From a pedagogical point of view this means providing the children with the most advantageous social and emotional conditions in all of their activities, while they grow up and develop. Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes the child's right to education, while Article 8 defines exposure to any kind of violence as one of the conditions that are contrary to the "higher interest" of the child. The conditions of the children in the conflict areas, to which the peace petition refers, were truly horrific. None of the basic needs of the children were met, and they suffered deep traumas, scarring them emotionally. It is totally unacceptable what the children had to go through.

As a woman who had to overcome many difficulties and yet achieved a career in education, I put great emphasis on the schooling of girls and the elimination of various hurdles in their way. UN documents underline the fact that girls and women generally suffer from unequal conditions, but moreover, in war or conflict areas they face the greatest rights violations. Peace is a state of grace which we have to establish for the future of our children. As Yannis Ritsos says, "peace is a child's dream!"

We, the signatories of this Statement, wanted peace. The "crimes" which are attributed to us in this indictment have nothing to do with the truth. We do not accept these accusations. My colleagues have time and again shown in this and the other courts that the so called evidence provided in the indictment is simply nonexistent and that all we demand is peace. The saddest part of this situation is that hundreds of academics are spending time in these criminal courts rather than attending to their teaching and research. This is a sad loss for Turkey and for humanity.

There is no crime at hand. Finally, this is a Statement asking for the investigation of the conditions, rights violations and deaths, which occurred during curfew periods, voicing our basic values and opinions and making a demand for peace. This statement is within the right to freedom of speech as enshrined in the constitution and international agreements. Therefore, I demand that this unjust case be dropped and I ask for my acquittal. (FG/AE/SD)

Translation: Ayşe Erzan