Endangered Scholars Worldwide

The information in this quarterly print report is current as of October 5, 2016. The situation of scholars and students around the world changes on a daily basis. For the most up-to-date information, including more details about each case and suggestions of ways in which you can be involved in calling for the freedom of endangered scholars and students, please visit us at www.endangeredscholarsworldwide.net or follow us at www.facebook.com/endangeredscholars. In these page we introduce new cases that have come to our attention in the past three months and provide basic information about continuing cases—a description of charges and potential or actual reported sentences.

If you are aware of a scholar or student whose case you believe we should investigate, please contact us at esw@newschool.edu.

NEW AND CONTINUING CASES

Special Report

On October 24, 2016, Endangered Scholars Worldwide and the Committee of Concerned Scientists, together transmitted a Joint Letter of Appeal to the Turkish Government and US Department of State, regarding the ongoing detention, persecution, and conviction of Serkan Golge, a 36-year-old United States citizen of Turkish descent who works as a physicist with the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Joint Letter of Appeal on Behalf of Serkan Golge, Imprisoned US Citizen and NASA Physicist of Turkish Descent

It has been over two months since Serkan Golge, a 36-year-old United States citizen of Turkish descent and a physicist with the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was arrested in Turkey. On August 6, 2016, we learned that Golge was formally accused of involvement with the Gulen movement, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. According to one of Golge’s associates, we also learned, he has been accused of spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The Committee of Concerned Scientists has been monitoring Golge’s case from the beginning, as did Endangered Scholars Worldwide by making inquiries on a daily basis in an attempt to have Golge released and to have charges against him dropped. We have been in contact with the US embassies in Turkey and have written to the Turkish authorities requesting that they release the NASA scientist. We have been told that Golge is alive, though he remains in detention and is the subject of a pending judicial case. Unfortunately, his case has not received wide media coverage in the US.

Golge is a senior research scientist at NASA who has been studying the health effects on the human body of time spent in space. He has helped create models that predict the risk of cancer from galactic cosmic rays and has analyzed data from particle detectors on the space station.

We at Endangered Scholars Worldwide and the Committee of Concerned Scientists consider Serkan Golge’s detention a flagrant and unjust violation of the freedom, security, and safety of a scientist who is clearly a victim of a political witch hunt — arrested without cause, held for weeks in solitary confinement and without access to a lawyer, and subjected to physical mistreatment and psychological abuse.

Endangered Scholars Worldwide and Committee of Concerned Scientists strongly deplore and condemn the ongoing detention, persecution, and conviction of Serkan Golge, and call upon all international organizations, academic and professional associations, and other groups and individuals devoted to the promotion and defense of human rights to strongly protest and condemn this arbitrary incarceration, to call for his immediate and unconditional release, and to urge the officials of the Turkish government to respect, guarantee, and implement the provisions and principles of human rights as specified in international conventions and treaties to which Turkey has long been a signatory.

Please send appeals to:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
President of Turkey
Office of the President
06573 Basbakanlik
Ankara
Turkey
Fax: +90 312 417 04 76
E-mail: contact@tccb.gov.tr

Bekir Bozdağ
Minister of Justice
06669 Kizilay
Ankara
Turkey
Fax: +90 312 419 3370

John Kerry
United States Secretary of State
Office of Foreign Missions
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520 USA
Email: OFMInfo@state.gov

Samantha Power
US Permanent Representative to the United Nations...