Dear members,
As many of you know, the situation of academic colleagues in Turkey, which has been deteriorating for months now, continues to be dire in the wake of the crackdown against opponents of the regime. The head of the equivalent of CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers) in Turkey has had flee to Germany. As you may have heard in the media, colleagues in Turkey have been dismissed en masse, their passports confiscated by the regime, and they have been subject to persecution.
In response, YUFA has recently contributed $2,000 to a relief fund established by Education International, which is the international union to which CAUT belongs. But YUFA members continue to want to do more for our Turkish colleagues in exile and at risk. At the recent General Membership Meeting (GMM), members suggested establishing a working group to explore pro-active ways in which YUFA members (and York) could assist and provide further support.
As YUFA’s Vice President External, I am proposing to convene a meeting as soon as we can, before the end of the fall semester, to discuss the various ways that YUFA members could organize solidarity and support for our colleagues in Turkey.
If you would like to join this meeting and/or be part of a solidarity initiative at York, please indicate your interest by emailing me, Terry Maley, at [email protected].
In consultation with all those who express interest, we will organize a date, time, and location for our first meeting.
For more information about the situation facing academics in Turkey, please see:
- Toronto academics protest Turkey's purge of scholars (Toronto Star, February 13, 2017)
- As Turkey's academic faces desolation, a call for solidarity with imperiled scholars (Huffington Post, March 19, 2017)
Thank you in advance for your solidarity and support.
Sincerely,
Terry Maley
Vice President External, YUFA