Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Scholars at Risk
Scholars at Risk is an organization that works to protect teachers and intellectuals whose lives are threatened on account of their jobs. Many scholars are interrogated, imprisoned, or given little choice but to leave their home countries. Scholars at Risk advocates for academic freedom by protecting these scholars and temporarily placing them in various higher education institutions worldwide so they can continue their academic careers in safe environments. Here is a video that provides a powerful explanation through description and personal anecdotes of how this organization operates and what kinds of things it has achieved so far.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
When I was researching Scholars at Risk, it was also really helpful to examine a real life case when this organization aided a scholar. Professor Ilham Tohti is a professor of economics at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing and has been consistently outspoken on human rights in China. While attempting to take up a position as a Visiting Scholar at Indiana University in the United States, he was detained at the airport with his teenage daughter. While Professor Tohti’s daughter was permitted to depart for the United States on a later flight, Professor Tohti was held in custody for 10 hours, before being sent back to his apartment without explanation. Scholars at Risk therefore respectfully urged the appropriate authorities to investigate the situation and to explain publicly the circumstances of any restrictions on Professor Tohti’s travel or, if there were no official restrictions, to expedite approval of any pending or future travel requests. (Here’s the full article, http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/21525). Though I didn’t know much about this organization before researching it, I can see now how important it is. It not only aids scholars who are being persecuted but also enforces the importance of education by allowing these highly educated people to work at universities or seek graduate schooling.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Clark actually hosted two SAR scholars on April 11, 2011. The speech was entitled Academic Freedom in the Middle East and Beyond: Supporting Scholars at Risk. The event featured a panel discussion with SAR scholar and Syrian human rights researcher and advocate Radwan Ziadeh, SAR scholar and Iranian women’s rights activist Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, and Clark University history professor and Kaloosdian/Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies Taner Akcam.
ReplyDelete