6 ms·

A Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison

128 points by mbaytas 9y ago

jackdumn 9y ago
If you are against to Erdogan, you will be declared as a terrorist at best. He is a control freak, and lost his sanity when he was a little boy. People of Turkey suffer a lot because of him.
grenoire 9y ago
The brain drain faced by Turkey in the last century is getting to even further extremes. I'm doubtful that the universities can restore their past reputation or 'quality,' but Turkish academics themselves will hopefully persevere and flourish in other countries.
- terminalcommand 9y ago
  Not all academics are pursued by the government. However, if you state an opinion against the government openly or are an expert in an important field such as constitutional law or state theory you are sure to face some consequences. For example all my constitutional law professors at one of the most prominent law faculties in Turkey were either arrested or forced to retire. Nowadays, our professors only state that new laws contradict the whole legal system but are afraid to speak out. For example, there are horrifying changes with executive decrees to the most basic rights such as Habeas Corpus. They contradict with the constitution but no one can take these executive decrees to the supreme court, because that is not allowed. The professors jokingly state that they do not want to speak further about these subjects, because they do not want to be subjected to these very laws they'd want to criticize.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    It's funny to read people being astonished about the habeas corpus violations in turkey, while hapily forgetting the US disregarded it too since the patriot act. The scale of violence is not the same, but you are sliding in the wrong directions too.
mad44 9y ago
This is how a country slides into a dictatorship: https://kottke.org/18/01/what-does-living-in-a-dictatorship-feel-like https://kottke.org/18/01/what-does-living-in-a-dictatorship-... The process is "gradual and then suddenly".
- briandear 9y ago
  This Trump dictator hysteria is getting ridiculous (responding to the article you linked.) If anything we should be alarmed now outraged that the FBI was actually working to influence American elections — which is what the evidence is starting to heavily suggest. But, that is another discussion. Right wing nutcases were talking about the potential of Obama postponing elections or attempting to seek a third term or similar malarkey— we laughed at those people just a few years ago but now we are seeing almost identical and equally nonsensical claims about Trump — for no other reason than ideological disagreement and Hillary-Defeat-Depressive-Syndrome. Here’s a link about an Obama third term scenario for Zero Hedge — a variation of this FUD was posted all over various right wing blogs. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-16/obama-wants-third-term-and-how-he-could-make-it-happen https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-16/obama-wants-third-... And now, right on cue, we have the left doing the same thing. Just stop. Trump doesn’t care about being a dictator, he just wants to finish his presidency and cash in on the speaking circuit and book tours while kicking back in Florida. I am not necessarily for or against Trump — but I am definitely tired of otherwise intelligent people falling into some of the most factless wild-eyed conspiracy theories. The implication that the US is similar to Turkey is not even remotely supported by facts or history. Let’s stop with the false equivalencies.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    "No other reason"? What kind of total eclipse of the senses is that? The man is unfit for public service; no, does not even know the meaning of those words. A low-intellect real estate dealer from New York is among the very, very last people on earth to be permitted the office and the power he wields. Those of us constantly panicking (for a score of months now) do so for such obvious reasons - the stream of illegal/corrupt messages spewing forth at America daily from what should be the most sober, deliberate speaker in the nation. If we're suffering from some kind of potus-ptsd, perhaps there's a reason.
shafyy 9y ago
For example, one of the arguments in my official indictment was that I had visited the United States and Canada, countries favoured by supporters of the movement that the government believes was behind the coup. That's crazy. But why is he already out when he was sentenced to six years in prison on December 20, 2017?
- jlg23 9y ago
  The article states: "[They] released him early owing to the time he had already served in prison while awaiting trial."
  - shafyy 9y ago
    It does. But he served 1 year while awaiting trial. So 6 - 1 = 5. He should still be serving almost 5 years now?
    - terminalcommand 9y ago
      There is something called conditional release, where you get to leave prison early. Maybe he benefited from that. Basically, now that all prisons exceeded maximum capacity, if you commit a crime that requires up to 5 years of punishment you don't have to go to jail. You can directly benefit from a conditional release. For example if you steal something, and you don't have any previous criminal record, you walk free due to overcrowding. In Turkey, prison sentences seem long on the paper, in real life you always get released a lot early. Especially now that prisons are hugely overcrowded.
- HappyDreamer 9y ago
  The text reads: ".. in July 2016. Theoretical physicist Ali Kaya is one of them. He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December ..." — that sounds like December 2016 to me, not 2017.
  - shafyy 9y ago
totalZero 9y ago
> One of my students Google-translated some research papers for me into Turkish, but they were held back on suspicion that they included secret codes — presumably because they contained so many equations. Such a fearful and non-results-oriented suspicion. Even if a physicist were able to hide messages in equations, what malicious activity did they believe he could accomplish?
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
  Not to mention the availability of vastly more suitable communication channels. I recall American news media giving a similar justification for not showing video statements by Al Qaeda. It was certainly realistic to expect that Al Qaeda would engage in communications with malicious effect, but it seems like quite a stretch that they'd rely on CNN to be their C&C channel. Maybe it hadn't quite sunk in at that point that the Internet extends well beyond the US.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    It seems like it would be a good thing for mainstream media outlets to not give their spotlight to terrorists
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Why?
      - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
        The terrorist's defining weapon is the propagation of irrational fear. When you broadcast their propaganda you become their weapon.
        valuearb 9y ago
        No, when you take away your citizens freedoms and liberties you become their weapon.
cf498 9y ago
Can Dündar once described the prison library of Silivri Sadly I couldn't find a translation in English, but the original in Turkish is also linked http://www.zeit.de/2017/43/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlinge-bibliotheken-autoren http://www.zeit.de/2017/43/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlin... http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-10/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlinge-bibliotheken-autoren-tuerkisch http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-10/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-h... The first paragraph is a rather good summary >Do you know where the literacy rate in Turkey is highest? In Silivri. Because there is Turkey's largest prison, and it is full of writers, journalists, scientists and intellectuals. There is a fairly extensive prison library there, which is steadily growing, as each inmate author asks his publisher for donations or donates his books to the library at the end of his stay. When I was there I happily discovered four of my books in the catalog. Imagine, you are behind bars as "offenders" and your books are there to "help the offenders better them self". Another piece of black humor in this matter: Once a prisoner asked for a book, the librarian's answer was: "We do not have the book, but its author is here."
- benbreen 9y ago
  I spent a memorable day once with a Turkish acquaintance who was also doing archival research in Lisbon when I was doing my PhD work there. Her mother came to visit and we walked all around the city. My acquaintance's mother and father both turned out to be prominent Turkish intellectuals. I asked her mother how she'd met her father - it turned out they met in prison. She said that was a pretty common origin story for Turkish academic couples of her generation, because that was where all the smart people were.
lolc 9y ago
Most people I meet from Turkey have a story of state persecution. One guy wrote two books in prison before being released awaiting trial. He fled when the verdict came down.

128 points by mbaytas 9y ago

If you are against to Erdogan, you will be declared as a terrorist at best. He is a control freak, and lost his sanity when he was a little boy. People of Turkey suffer a lot because of him.

grenoire 9y ago

The brain drain faced by Turkey in the last century is getting to even further extremes. I'm doubtful that the universities can restore their past reputation or 'quality,' but Turkish academics themselves will hopefully persevere and flourish in other countries.

terminalcommand 9y ago
Not all academics are pursued by the government. However, if you state an opinion against the government openly or are an expert in an important field such as constitutional law or state theory you are sure to face some consequences. For example all my constitutional law professors at one of the most prominent law faculties in Turkey were either arrested or forced to retire. Nowadays, our professors only state that new laws contradict the whole legal system but are afraid to speak out. For example, there are horrifying changes with executive decrees to the most basic rights such as Habeas Corpus. They contradict with the constitution but no one can take these executive decrees to the supreme court, because that is not allowed. The professors jokingly state that they do not want to speak further about these subjects, because they do not want to be subjected to these very laws they'd want to criticize.
- sametmax 9y ago
  It's funny to read people being astonished about the habeas corpus violations in turkey, while hapily forgetting the US disregarded it too since the patriot act. The scale of violence is not the same, but you are sliding in the wrong directions too.

mad44 9y ago

This is how a country slides into a dictatorship: https://kottke.org/18/01/what-does-living-in-a-dictatorship-feel-like https://kottke.org/18/01/what-does-living-in-a-dictatorship-... The process is "gradual and then suddenly".

briandear 9y ago
This Trump dictator hysteria is getting ridiculous (responding to the article you linked.) If anything we should be alarmed now outraged that the FBI was actually working to influence American elections — which is what the evidence is starting to heavily suggest. But, that is another discussion. Right wing nutcases were talking about the potential of Obama postponing elections or attempting to seek a third term or similar malarkey— we laughed at those people just a few years ago but now we are seeing almost identical and equally nonsensical claims about Trump — for no other reason than ideological disagreement and Hillary-Defeat-Depressive-Syndrome. Here’s a link about an Obama third term scenario for Zero Hedge — a variation of this FUD was posted all over various right wing blogs. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-16/obama-wants-third-term-and-how-he-could-make-it-happen https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-16/obama-wants-third-... And now, right on cue, we have the left doing the same thing. Just stop. Trump doesn’t care about being a dictator, he just wants to finish his presidency and cash in on the speaking circuit and book tours while kicking back in Florida. I am not necessarily for or against Trump — but I am definitely tired of otherwise intelligent people falling into some of the most factless wild-eyed conspiracy theories. The implication that the US is similar to Turkey is not even remotely supported by facts or history. Let’s stop with the false equivalencies.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  "No other reason"? What kind of total eclipse of the senses is that? The man is unfit for public service; no, does not even know the meaning of those words. A low-intellect real estate dealer from New York is among the very, very last people on earth to be permitted the office and the power he wields. Those of us constantly panicking (for a score of months now) do so for such obvious reasons - the stream of illegal/corrupt messages spewing forth at America daily from what should be the most sober, deliberate speaker in the nation. If we're suffering from some kind of potus-ptsd, perhaps there's a reason.

shafyy 9y ago

For example, one of the arguments in my official indictment was that I had visited the United States and Canada, countries favoured by supporters of the movement that the government believes was behind the coup. That's crazy. But why is he already out when he was sentenced to six years in prison on December 20, 2017?

jlg23 9y ago
The article states: "[They] released him early owing to the time he had already served in prison while awaiting trial."
- shafyy 9y ago
  It does. But he served 1 year while awaiting trial. So 6 - 1 = 5. He should still be serving almost 5 years now?
  - terminalcommand 9y ago
    There is something called conditional release, where you get to leave prison early. Maybe he benefited from that. Basically, now that all prisons exceeded maximum capacity, if you commit a crime that requires up to 5 years of punishment you don't have to go to jail. You can directly benefit from a conditional release. For example if you steal something, and you don't have any previous criminal record, you walk free due to overcrowding. In Turkey, prison sentences seem long on the paper, in real life you always get released a lot early. Especially now that prisons are hugely overcrowded.
HappyDreamer 9y ago
The text reads: ".. in July 2016. Theoretical physicist Ali Kaya is one of them. He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December ..." — that sounds like December 2016 to me, not 2017.
- shafyy 9y ago

totalZero 9y ago

> One of my students Google-translated some research papers for me into Turkish, but they were held back on suspicion that they included secret codes — presumably because they contained so many equations. Such a fearful and non-results-oriented suspicion. Even if a physicist were able to hide messages in equations, what malicious activity did they believe he could accomplish?

0xcde4c3db 9y ago
Not to mention the availability of vastly more suitable communication channels. I recall American news media giving a similar justification for not showing video statements by Al Qaeda. It was certainly realistic to expect that Al Qaeda would engage in communications with malicious effect, but it seems like quite a stretch that they'd rely on CNN to be their C&C channel. Maybe it hadn't quite sunk in at that point that the Internet extends well beyond the US.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  It seems like it would be a good thing for mainstream media outlets to not give their spotlight to terrorists
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Why?
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      The terrorist's defining weapon is the propagation of irrational fear. When you broadcast their propaganda you become their weapon.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        No, when you take away your citizens freedoms and liberties you become their weapon.

cf498 9y ago

Can Dündar once described the prison library of Silivri Sadly I couldn't find a translation in English, but the original in Turkish is also linked http://www.zeit.de/2017/43/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlinge-bibliotheken-autoren http://www.zeit.de/2017/43/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlin... http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-10/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-haeftlinge-bibliotheken-autoren-tuerkisch http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-10/meinungsfreiheit-tuerkei-h... The first paragraph is a rather good summary >Do you know where the literacy rate in Turkey is highest? In Silivri. Because there is Turkey's largest prison, and it is full of writers, journalists, scientists and intellectuals. There is a fairly extensive prison library there, which is steadily growing, as each inmate author asks his publisher for donations or donates his books to the library at the end of his stay. When I was there I happily discovered four of my books in the catalog. Imagine, you are behind bars as "offenders" and your books are there to "help the offenders better them self". Another piece of black humor in this matter: Once a prisoner asked for a book, the librarian's answer was: "We do not have the book, but its author is here."

benbreen 9y ago
I spent a memorable day once with a Turkish acquaintance who was also doing archival research in Lisbon when I was doing my PhD work there. Her mother came to visit and we walked all around the city. My acquaintance's mother and father both turned out to be prominent Turkish intellectuals. I asked her mother how she'd met her father - it turned out they met in prison. She said that was a pretty common origin story for Turkish academic couples of her generation, because that was where all the smart people were.

lolc 9y ago

Most people I meet from Turkey have a story of state persecution. One guy wrote two books in prison before being released awaiting trial. He fled when the verdict came down.