We, the members of the Migration and Society Research Unit – URMIS – reaffirm our unwavering support for Pınar Selek, a teacher-researcher at the Université Côte d’Azur and member of our team.
Because of her research, our colleague has been relentlessly persecuted for twenty-five years in Turkey where she has been unjustly and heinously accused, convicted and imprisoned for a crime she did not commit.
On 21 June 2022, Turkey’s state-run news agency announced that the Turkish Supreme Court had overturned Pınar Selek’s fourth acquittal, which was handed down on 19 December 2014 by the Istanbul Criminal Court. Previously, Pınar Selek had appeared in three criminal proceedings, all of which found her innocent. After imprisoning and torturing her for her sociological research on the Kurds, the Turkish authorities decided to make her a “terrorist” by fabricating evidence to “prove”, against all evidence, that an attack had occurred, despite every analysis having established that the 1998 Istanbul Spice Market explosion was caused by an accident.
On 6 January 2023, six months after the announcement in the press that the fourth acquittal had been overturned, the Supreme Court’s decision was finally notified to Pınar Selek’s lawyers by the Istanbul Criminal Court. These six months of unbearable waiting and new psychological torture for Pınar Selek have resulted in a parody of justice. Pınar Selek is the subject of an international arrest warrant requesting her immediate imprisonment. This decision was made by the Istanbul Criminal Court even before the judges of this court held a first hearing, set for 31 March 2023.
We, the members of Urmis, her colleagues, demand an end to political and legal persecution and the truth. We will be represented in the delegations of institutions and public figures who will go to Turkey on 31 March to support Pınar Selek [1]Press Release: International arrest warrant and new hearing for Pınar Selek, by the European Coordination of Solidarity Collectives with Pınar Selek, 16 January 2023 : … Continue reading.
In Paris and Nice, on 27 February 2023.
The Migration and Society Research Unit – Urmis.
Notes
| ↑1 | Press Release: International arrest warrant and new hearing for Pınar Selek, by the European Coordination of Solidarity Collectives with Pınar Selek, 16 January 2023 : https://pinarselek.fr/wp-content/uploads/Press-Release-jan-2023.pdf |
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