Statement of Academic Ayşe Berkman

Click to read the article in Turkish

We are publishing the statement of Prof. Dr. Ayşe Berkman from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (MSGSÜ), who has been charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" for having signed the declaration entitled "We will not be a party to this crime" prepared by the Academics for Peace and had her second hearing at the İstanbul 36th Heavy Penal Court in İstanbul Çağlayan Courthouse on January 10, 2019.

***

Your honors,

I stand before you, because I asked for peace and said no more people should die. In December of 2015 and January of 2016, the bad news was unceasing. Civilian deaths, one after the other; the blocking of access to water, food, and medical treatment; the storing of dead bodies in home freezers; a sniper's killing of Baby Miray in the lap of her aunt; the lying in the open for seven days of Mother Taybet's corpse; the shooting of relations who tried to reach the body: these are some of the stories that I read.

Hearing such news daily, I felt deep sadness; I was in a wretched state, not knowing what I could do.

Seeing the text of a petition on the internet, I signed it right way, in hopes that it might do something. I had one idea in mind: to keep more people from dying.

In both your courtroom and others, colleagues charged under the same indictment have explained the details of the events of 2015; I am not going to repeat them. However, from reports published by such independent bodies as the United Nations and the Council of Europe, we have learned that the news we heard in those days was unfortunately correct.

Even though three years have passed, no attempt has been made to contradict the reports. Nonetheless, as a citizen of the Republic of Turkey, I expect the truth of those reports to be confirmed or refuted; if confirmed, I expect the persons who caused these violations of rights to be found and punished.

Perhaps because I am a mathematician, or because I work in a part of mathematics that is close to logic, as I was reading the indictment, what most drew my attention was the logical pattern that it followed.

After graduating from high school, I entered a mathematics department, and from that day since, for thirty years, I have never been separated from mathematics. My undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees are all in mathematics.

For me the most beautiful aspect of mathematics is that unsupported claims have no place. What you say in mathematics, you have to prove.

Until I started reading the claims against us, I thought that, just as in mathematics, any legal accusations had to be supported by sound evidence and proof; for if evidence were not a condition for making an accusation, then anybody could accuse anyone of anything.

In the indictment against us, in place of evidence, there are some unexplained personal interpretations. I want to give a few examples from the indictment. "It is understood that the petition's real aim was ..."; "on careful examination it is clearly seen that ..."; "in appearance it is legal, but in reality it is illegal"; "in appearance it is A, but in essence it is B"—with such judgments concludes the indictment whereby I am accused.

The second point that I notice is that the indictment is built on an assumption. According to the prosecutor, criticizing the state is equivalent to making terror propaganda. Accepting this as correct, the prosecutor makes his accusations.

However, citizens can criticize the state, and when they see something wrong, they can draw attention to the wrong, in order to correct it. Doing this is even necessary, if we want to be a better country. By setting out with the assumption that criticism equals terror, the prosecutor arrives at the conclusion that we made propaganda for terror.

However, if we start with a false assumption and follow the rules of logic, we can prove any statement, whether true or false: this is one of the basic facts known to mathematicians and logicians.

I thought jurists would know this rule too. In mathematics, while choosing our assumptions, which we call axioms, we are very careful, since otherwise our axiomatic system will collapse; it will be useless, if we can prove all statements, including contradictions.

Now I should like to talk about the strongest basis for the terror propaganda accusation. Supposedly I received an order from someone called Bese Hozat, then behaved accordingly and signed the petition. First of all, I should like to analyze this sentence from the perspective of a logician.

This is an existential statement; that is, it asserts that something exists (in this example, the receiving of an order); however, no proof is given.

Of course it cannot be proven, because I did not take any orders; but let us leave this aside for the moment. The prosecutor who prepared the indictment does not try to show any evidence here; the only basis for their claim is the observation that this person made a declaration, and our petition followed. In other words, A happened after B, and hence those who did A received their orders from the person who did B.

Your honors, there is a famous example that I am sure you are aware of, but let me recall it here: "After the ice cream sales increased, the number of drownings in the sea also increased."

The logical conclusion that one can derive from this sentence is of course not that eating ice cream leads to drowning. Obviously, the summer came and people use different methods to cool off.

The relation between the two events here is not necessitation. According to the logic used by the prosecutor, the relation should have been "eating ice cream entails drowning"; however, in this example, the correct conclusion is, "summer entails eating ice cream and drowning".

In fact, by studying various data, events that have nothing in common may seem to entail one another. Statisticians have a nice expression for this, they say "Correlation is not causation." We can restate it as "not every relation is a relation of necessitation."

As a result, the basis of the accusation of taking orders is not the kind that a logician or a statistician can accept. It has no proof, and it is impossible to prove anyway.

I should like to point out once more that I am surprised that an accusation with no basis has a value in law.

Here is another point that I should like to make about this issue. The best defence against an indictment that makes an accusation against me is of course to show that this accusation is false, which is equivalent to proving the negation of the accusation.

In other words, to be acquitted, I have to prove that I have not received an order from the person called Bese Hozat.

I wish this were a mathematical statement, because in mathematics there are ways to prove non-existence; however, in general, it is impossible to prove a statement of non-existence, if it is about life, earth, or space.

This is a well-known fact in philosophy, and one of the best examples was given by the famous logician Bertrand Russell, who happens to be the founder of the International War Crimes Tribunal as well. The striking example given by Russell of a false statement that is impossible to disprove is, "Between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit."

This sentence and the claim that I took an order from Bese Hozat fall into the same logical category. You see how the indictment puts me in an impasse that has been known to philosophers, logicians, and mathematicians for over a century.

The last point that I should like to examine in the indictment is the claim that no country will allow terror propaganda.

If we use the prosecutor's definition of terror propaganda as criticising the state, there are many counterexamples.

For instance, in 1960 the "Manifesto of the 121" was announced in France by a group of intellectuals, including Jean Paul Sartre and André Breton, condemning the tortures and human-rights violations committed by the French army in Algeria. They called the war criminal and absurd, and they invited the French people to disobey the army.

There was a big reaction to the manifesto in France; its printing in newspapers was banned, and the lectures of a few university professors who signed the petition were suspended. Even though indictments were prepared for 29 signers out of 121, in the end they were not issued; hence, none of the signers were prosecuted.

My second example is from the United States. During the Vietnam War, American universities became the centers of anti-war movements, and many protests took place.

Protestors who were violent in the events were arrested; however, not a single academic was prosecuted for making anti-war statements.

One of the striking examples from those days is the declaration made by the Harvard University Senate saying, "the most reasonable plan for peace is the prompt, rapid, and complete withdrawal of all US forces. We support a united and sustained national effort to bring our troops home."

My last example is from Israel. After the acceptance of the Israeli Nation-State Law about six months ago, many intellectuals, writers, artists, and academics published various declarations protesting the law.

In one of these declarations, signers said that their state is doing ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, and Israeli courts are legitimizing the destruction of entire villages; hence they called for external pressure before it is too late. No signer was prosecuted in Israel either.

During important events, it frequently happens that politicians and intellectuals have disagreements, and intellectuals feel responsible and warn the politicians. Here, I give only three examples.

Your honors, I have been teaching mathematics to university students for twenty years. In this period, I suppose about three thousand students have taken courses from me.

In lectures and in office hours, of course I explain the technical side of mathematics, such as the theorems of our topic, their proofs, and the methods of solving problems; but at the same time, I try to engender the culture of mathematics in particular and science in general.

I want students both to observe in me, and to experience for themselves, how a scientist approaches concepts, analyzes problems, and must not break off the pursuit of a problem, though its difficulty may leave everybody not knowing which way to go.

But there is one more thing that I try to teach students, something to which I give more importance than all that I have said. I want them to make a habit of what I can call, briefly, the critical approach. This is something needed not only by scientists, but by everybody.

What I mean by the critical approach is, first of all, trusting one's own mind, instead of giving it over to the command of an authority; not giving up on thinking, and, by investigating the information and ideas that one sees and hears, accepting them or putting them to work only after passing them through the filter of one's own mind.

In this approach, one must believe nobody, no authority, no teacher, no textbook, without investigation. People can be mistaken, books can contain misinformation, something correct under certain conditions can be wrong otherwise.

To understand the differences and find the truth, there is no measure we can use, but our own mind.

However, we cannot habituate our students, just by saying words like "Approach everything critically," or "Use your mind." Fortunately, in explaining mathematics, quite a few opportunities arise to apply and emphasize the points that I have made.

In mathematics, nobody can make anybody accept a false statement or proof. There is nothing like "command acceptance of a theorem."

We have to prove our claims. Actually, proving them is not enough, but other persons have to be convinced. If they are not convinced, they ask about the points they do not understand, and you have to explain them. This time new questions may arise, and you have the burden of answering them.

For this reason, you cannot fight in mathematics: if you see an error, you say so; if the other person can correct it, they do so; if they cannot, they withdraw their claim; or perhaps what you called a mistake was not, and then you accept that you were in error.

Of course, such a discussion can happen only in an environment where there is freedom of expression. In the ideal university, if even a first-year student notices that a professor is in error, they can comfortably say so; anybody can dispute with anybody. The university is where everybody is looking for the truth.

Reason, scientific conduct, honesty, freedom of thought and expression: they are the sine qua non, not only of mathematics, but of the whole of academia.

New ideas are born only in free minds, in a free environment. If we want to advance as a country, we must defend freedom of thought and expression everywhere, without compromise.

To sum up my words, I shall say that I consider this accusation of "signing on orders" as the biggest denigration and insult that can be made to a person who puts reason and rational thought at the center of her life. I reject this insult.

Not only to a scientist or an academic, but to any adult, claiming that they are taking orders is the biggest insult. Of course, people can ask others' opinions and thoughts, but they should make their decisions after filtering through their own minds and consciences—especially people who are responsible to society through their professions, such as judges, prosecutors, and lawyers like you, who administer justice; doctors, in whose hands we put our lives; teachers, who raise the next generations; and many others.

At this point, with love and respect, I should like to mention our teacher Cahit Arf, who contributed a lot to the academic world of Turkey both directly and indirectly. Even though I was not his student, I was a student of his students and colleagues.

In the late 1970s, when Cahit Arf was a dean at METU, he did not agree to follow the orders of the Chief of the General Staff, and he protected the university and his students against pressures.

Before I finish my statement, I should like to say a few more words about our petition. In the petition we make a call to resume the peace negotiations.

Does a text which makes terrorism propaganda also make a call for peace? I leave it to you to decide.

Also we mentioned in the petition that if the peace negotiations start, then we will volunteer to be observers in the process. Hence it is another irony that while we are openly declaring that we should like to give as much support as we can for achieving peace again, we are being accused of making propaganda for terrorism.

If the petition is making propaganda of something, then it is for peace; never ever for terrorism. It contains no insults, and it is within the bounds of freedom of speech, which we all need and should all defend. I signed the petition as a responsible citizen.

For all these reasons, I ask for my acquittal. (AB/DP/SD)

* This statement has been translated into English by Prof. Dr. Ayşe Berkman and David Pierce.