Since 2012, Pinar Selek, a refugee in France, has been teaching sociology at the University of Nice and is an associate member of a CNRS laboratory.
The Turkish President Erdoğan executed an authoritarian shift following the failed coup of July 2016, by restricting freedoms and ordering massive purges in the public service and among educators.
He also intends to crack down outside his territory, as demonstrated by the decision of the prosecutor of the Court of Cassation of Turkey, who has sought, against Pinar Selek, a Turkish national residing in France, sociologist, and professor at the University of Nice, the annulment of her acquittal pronounced in 2014 by the Turkish judiciary, along with a request for a life imprisonment sentence.
These demands provoke our concern and indignation. Indeed, Pinar Selek has been persecuted by the Turkish authorities for 19 years. They have attributed to her the responsibility for an attack that never happened, for which she has been acquitted four times.
Xavier Garcia, departmental secretary, “condemns this unfounded judicial harassment against this advocate for freedom of expression and offers her his full support.”
