
Restore justice in Turkey - mbaytas
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01677-z
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mbaytas
"Peace is a dangerous cause to fight for in Turkey right now. In the latest
blow to academics, 11 members of the Turkish Medical Association, including
its president, Raşit Tükel, were arrested in early-morning raids last week.
Their crime? Using the slogan that war is a matter of public health, the
association had called for a halt to the Turkish army’s cross-border assault
on military units of Syrian Kurds, launched on 20 January to international
consternation. (...) The raids follow the arrest of more than a thousand
academics who signed a petition in January 2016 calling for peace in the
country’s southeast, where government forces were fighting Kurdish
separatists. Many face criminal charges, and hundreds lost their jobs."

"As one part of the government oversees mass arrests and orchestrates war,
other parts are quietly but determinedly working to fix some of the entrenched
problems in the research system. Thousands of new PhD places have been created
in recent years, along with some brand-new research institutes, and
universities have been energized into competing with each other by offering
financial rewards for strong performers. It is a start, and has been enough to
persuade at least some young scientists doing postdocs abroad to return home
to establish independent research labs."

