In brief:
Scholars at 89 universities have been threatened with dismissal and 30 have been arrested after Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, denounced the “treason of so-called intellectuals” who had demanded an end to what critics see as state violence in clashes with Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey.
In his message, Dr Stavilă criticised Turkey’s crackdown on academics as going “back to the dark ages”, saying that lecturers had faced threats for speaking out on certain issues.
Dr Stavilă, who has now left Turkey, likens the situation in Turkish academia to that faced by Romania under the communist-era regime of the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.
More for the archives of a shameless Turkey.
