Turkish academics detained for signing declaration

The military General Staff said 135 PKK militants in Silopi, 308 in Cizre and 101 in Sur have been killed since December 15. according to media reports.

After the petition provoked a furious response from Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, several universities in the country have begun investigations into signatories among their faculty – which could lead to their dismissal if accusations of unlawful political agitation hold up. It said: “Many more universities are likely to follow suit, amounting to a wave of punitive actions against academics exclusively on the grounds that they have criticised the government’s policies in the southeastern provinces”.

The Dogan news agency reported on Thursday that Duzce University in northwestern Turkey fired a sociology lecturer for signing the declaration.

The Middle East Studies Association, which represents 3,000 scholars, accused the Turkish government of violating its obligations to protect freedom of expression under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Turkish tanks and artillery have bombarded Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq in response to Tuesday’s attack and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has vowed air strikes will follow if necessary. More than a dozen academics were arrested on Friday.

Police said that PKK terrorists attacked a moving armored police vehicle with rocket launchers.

A ceasefire broke down between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and government last June, reigniting the 30-year-old conflict when an ISIS suicide bomber killed more than 30 people.

After the show was broadcast, Turkish authorities launched an investigation of the show and the caller. He called them “dark people” and doesn’t see them as enlightened despite their titles of professor or doctor. However, on June 7, 2015, Erdogan’s party, the AKP, lost its parliamentary majority when it was taken by surprise by the electoral advance of another left-wing, mostly Kurdish party, the People’s Democratic Party, or HDP.

“It was a groundbreaking attempt to solve the Kurdish issue, and many intellectuals supported it”.

The government blames the exodus of civilians on PKK violence and says the military is going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Suspected Kurdish militants attacked a police station in southeast Turkey Wednesday night, killing six people, including toddlers and a baby, and wounding 39.

The Anadolu Agency says the three officers succumbed to their wounds Monday after being hit by a roadside bomb in Sirnak’s Idil district, near the Syrian and Iraqi borders.