June 17, 2013 International Intellectuals Call on the Turkish Government to Desist from its Repression of Popular Protest We deplore the recent crackdown of the Turkish government on its own citizens, the clearly unjustified use of tear gas, acts of force, gas canisters and smoke bombs that have resulted in a vast number of injuries, imperiling the lives of those who seek to exercise their basic freedoms of assembly and protest. This assault of the Turkish government on its own people constitutes an attack on democratic principles and a departure from legitimate methods of governance - we unequivocally oppose such tactics of intimidation and state violence. In the name of democratic principles, we call upon the Turkish government to cease these violent actions immediately. We affirm the aims of the popular resistance to the privatization of public space, to the growing authoritarian rule dramatically instantiated by this objectionable display of state violence, and the preservation of public rights of protest. We call upon the government to (a) stop the beating of all protesters and those in the media who seek to represent their point of view, including lawyers and journalists; (b) cease obstructing access to medical care for the injured; (c) put an end to the practice of unlawful detention and sequestering of protesters, medical personnel and legal counsel and (d) facilitate access to medical care and legal representation for those injured by the police. We call for the immediate end to this appalling state violence and we reaffirm the rights of popular dissent and resistance, the right to have access to a media uncensored by governmental powers, and the right to move and speak freely in public space as preconditions of democratic life. Signed: Tarik Ali, author and editor, New Left Review, UK Tewfik Allal, Président du Manifeste des Libertés, France Etienne Balibar, Universite Nanterre, France Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley, USA Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley USA Margaret Brose, University of California, Santa Cruz Alex Demirovic, Technische Universitat Berlin, Germany Lisa Duggan, New York University, USA Cynthia Enloe, Clark University, USA Eric Fassin, Universite Paris – 8,France Michel Feher, Director, Zone Books, France Alfredo Saad Filho, United Nations and SOAS, UK Nilufer Gole, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, France Siba N Grovogui, Johns Hopkins University, USA Ilker Ataç, University of Vienna Hannes Lacher, York University, Canada George Liagouras, University of the Aegean, Greece Michael Lowy, CNRS, France Adam David Morton, University of Manchester, UK Matthieu de Nanteuil, Universite de Louvain, Belgium Ravi Palat, State University of New York, Binghamton, USA Hugo Radice, University of Leeds, UK Josep Ramoneda, journalist and philosopher, Spain Miranda Schreurs, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany Stuart Shields, University of Manchester, UK Daniela Tepe-Belfrage, University of Sheffield, UK Eleni Varikas, Universite Paris 8, France Hayden White, Stanford University, USA Paul Zarembka, University of Buffalo, USA Slavoj Zizek, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:58:37 +0000
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