content tagged with statements of academics for peace

Though the judges and prosecutors who found more than 200 academics guilty and penalized them and jurists in the Constitutional Court acted according to the same constitution and penal codes, why were their verdicts spread over such a large spectrum?

The text we signed is quite clear. It says, "We demand [the government] to ... create a road map that would lead to a lasting peace..." I have not come across a dictionary that explains the meaning of peace with terror. Peace is antonym of both war and terror.

Are we going to turn our pain into more violence, hate, pain and injustice, or into steps that multiply life, beauty, love, peace and justice?

In order to heal the traumas transmitted from one generation to the other, and to come out of the cycles of violence we have been suffering from, we need reparative justice more than ever.

Whenever a war or a conflict starts, the virtues of peace are forgotten and the voice of nonviolent people calling for peace is muted by the voice of weapons. Hence, the times when real love of peace is tested are not the times of peace, but times of war.

And indeed, it is those deeds that need to be defended, those acts that were carried out in accordance with the existing policies of the government, not me saying “Do not do this, solve the problems without resorting to violence.”

Three years ago we undersigned the same petition,1128 people from different parts of Turkey, and most of us did not know each other. You brought us together for one year.

War, isolation and torture damage health and psyche, and engender illnesses. The best remedy is peace. Humans and animals alike prosper in an atmosphere of peace and nature is not ravaged in times of peace.