13% of the recommendations received by Indonesia in the previous cycle were related to quality education (SDG4). The most recurring sub-topics were regarding poverty, rights of the child, and women’s rights
41st_Session_UN-UPR_FactSheet_IndonesiaCover image by Rizky Rahmat Hidayat on Unsplash.
Out of the 257 recommendations offered during the 3rd UPR Cycle of 2017, the Philippines accepted all those concerning education under paragraphs 133.219 – 133.225, committing to prioritise expenditure towards public education. Main issues in education include high dropout and low enrollment rates, as well as discrimination.
41st_Session_UN-UPR_FactSheet_PhillipinesCover image by RJ Joquico on Unsplash.
The Borgen Project: ‘The Education Crisis in Syria’ accessible in <https://borgenproject.org/education-crisis-in-syria/>
Syria’s educational system has faced challenges for a long time, but the situation improved before the war’s outbreak in 2011. In the decades that preceded the crisis, the educational sector in Syria was witnessing improvements concerning school and university enrolments. Nevertheless, the Syrian government was, at the time, taking initiatives and showing interest in fighting illiteracy as well as increasing the number of primary and preparatory schools throughout the country.
Following the outbreak of the civil war, Syrian children of all ages were left without access to education. According to recent data published, there are more than 2.4 million Syrian children currently out of school.
Syrian children are currently facing several challenges that make it extremely difficult to attend their school or continue their education. The conflict has led to people’s displacement from their homes, poverty, and the inability of families to pay for school materials. In addition, the Syrian civil war has dangerously normalized and dramatically increased the issue of child labour. The stories shared by some of the affected children highlight the gravity of their situation. Issa, a 12-year-old boy, expressed his feeling of bitterness when he could not attend school for years after his family was displaced due to the war. Or Salim, a victim of displacement and child labour who was forced to seek refuge in Lebanon, where he currently works daily carrying potato bags.
Albeit the employment of children under the age of 15 is illegal under Syrian legislation, no prominent governmental initiatives have been taken in the past few years to address this issue. However, UNICEF is taking steps to tackle the problem by adopting and implementing friendly policies designed to assist Syrian children in the enjoyment of their rights.
A 2012 International Labour Organisation report recommended the Syrian national legislation to reform and impose further regulatory norms in the field of children’s work. The report also highlights how Syrian penalty laws are not severe enough to prevent employers from hiring children. Although the Syrian crisis slowed down the ILO’s work, in 2018, it adopted a ‘multi-sectoral approach’ to prevent child labour. This approach is meant to protect children’s rights to education and livelihood. It is also led and coordinated by several parties, including the Syrian Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, as well as the United Nations. Perhaps this multi-sided tactic, including a governmental representative, will reduce the number of children who are working rather than attending school.
Unfortunately, Syria’s educational system faces other challenges as well. One of these is the limited access to electricity. The electrical energy infrastructure in Syria was damaged severely after the crisis, leaving most cities in the country, such as Aleppo and Damascus, without electricity for most hours of the day. Most schools in Syria were affected, and students had to struggle in dark classrooms. However, the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) and UNICEF intervened in some places and saved the situation. For instance, in Aleppo, ECHO and UNICEF supplied 30 schools with solar panels, a successful step that positively changed the situation for students and teachers.
Nonetheless, implementing solar panels in all schools throughout the country is lengthy and costly. Since students of all age groups need electricity at home to prepare for exams, it would also fail to solve the issue in its entirety. The situation is undoubtedly precarious, but the government can take initiatives to assist students to study in more adequate conditions. Both the UN and ECHO could provide public city libraries with solar panels for electricity generation. This would allow students to learn in quiet and well-lit surroundings, thus contributing to their educational success.
Another major challenge in Syria’s educational sector is the severe lack of fuel which directly affects students’ capabilities to access educational institutions. The Covid-19 pandemic, in addition, forced schools and universities to shut down for months, leading to the dropping out of a vast number of students.
As mentioned above, UNICEF is taking several steps to improve these circumstances and combat the so-called ‘lost generation’. According to recently published data, UNICEF has not only been active in Syria throughout the past ten years but has also helped over 1.5 million children since 2016 by providing them with study materials and better chances for education. Furthermore, UNESCO has played an active role in Syria by launching several platforms to support Syrian children, psychologically as well as educationally. An example of this can be seen in the creation of “The Second Chance Program” by CapED, which assists the students who failed their final exams in retaking these during the summer, thereby providing them with a second opportunity to move onto the next grade.
Overall, the situation in Syria is chaotic and complex, and governmental administrations fail to prioritise education. According to a report published by The Middle East Institute in 2022, the limited and short-term nature of the funding, insufficiency and inefficiency of data collection, and the delays in the embracement of new approaches are significant factors hampering Syria’s educational success. Education in Syria is in dire need of funding and rebuilding to improve students’ situations and guarantee their basic human rights.
Cover image -Photo by Omar Ram on Unsplash
Written by Noor Mousa
Edited by Olga Ruiz Pilato
Ms. Melek Çetinkaya is the mother of Taha Furkan Çetinkaya, a military student. She believes in her son’s innocence and tries to make her voice heard on social media so that her son, who is currently held imprisoned, is released. Ms. Çetinkaya stayed at home with her children for three and a half years, believing that the state would provide justice until she finally decided to take to the streets to protest government unfairness through peaceful demonstrations and marches.[i] According to the Turkish Constitution, every citizen has the right to act peacefully without permission, stone, stick or weapon. However, every time she protests, she is fined 390 Turkish Liras (TL) and is taken to the police station, where she is kept for several hours. One of the times she was arrested, she was forced to stay in the anti-terror department (TEM) for two days.[ii]
Melek Çetinkaya is known for her campaigns and peaceful protests to raise awareness on her son’s victimization known to large masses and for the release of his son and hundreds of others’ unlawful arrests. The protests stem from the ineffectiveness of the Turkish judicial system under Erdogan’s regime.
Çetinkaya’s son, Taha, was a military student at the Turkish Air Force Academy. Taha was on summer vacation at home after completing his first year at the Air Force Academy. On July 10th, 2016, five days before the attempted coup, cadets were invited to the annual 3-week routine military camp. These camps were one of the programs determined one year in advance and included in the military students’ yearly program calendar.[iii]
On the morning of July 15th, Air Forces Commander General Abidin Ünal made an unplanned visit to the cadet camp and gave a speech to the cadets. Ünal visited the cadet camp every year, but not unnoticed. He usually made a scheduled visit to the centre. The cadets would clean the campsite, cook, and upkeep the spaces s and, as preparation for high profile visits. Only once this is done will the visitors meet the cadets.[iv]
The cadets passed police points when arriving at the Osmangazi Bridge, but none of the police asked them where they were going. The commanders carried no money on them, so when they reached the toll, both the cadets paid the fee with cash they had individually collected and crossed the bridge. The authorities stopped the bus with the cadets in Sultanbeyli after crossing the bridge and were told there had been a coup, a news that came as a shock to the cadets. The public offered the cadets water and cigarettes and sang the national anthem.[v] At approximately 2 am, two policemen stated, “Okay, we have these kids; you can disperse”. The cadets did as they were told, reiterating they were not coup plotters. Later in the morning, the police arrested the cadets and made them wait on the bridge until 8 am instead of taking the cadets to the police station or the air force school.[vi]
Throughout the morning, people started arriving at the bridge carrying weapons, knives, skewers, and sticks and started attacking the cadets. They first broke the bus’s windows and proceeded to get on the bus and start kicking the cadets. One of the armed persons shot the gas tank and shouted, “kill them”. The cadets hid their weapons under their arms in response to the fear and terror that had broken out, and fortunately, no cadets were killed. However, the children present were taken to the police station in Sultanbeyli and held in detention for four days.[vii]
The institutional facilities had severely poor conditions. The fact that the cadets were arbitrarily detained for over five years, the children subjected to torture for four consecutive days under police authority, and dogs were tied up and deprived of food and water highlights grave human rights violations. When the cadets asked to go to the toilet, they were taken by banging their backs, shoulders, and heads against the wall. The prison authorities filled 40-person detention rooms with 120 people.[viii]
The cadet’s indictments sought three life sentences for overthrowing the Turkish Constitution. The authorities separated the imprisoned cadets into five cases, namely ‘the Sultanbeyli case’, the ‘TRT/Digiturk case’, the ‘Orhanlı case’, the ‘Bosporus bridge case,’ and the ‘Fatih Sultan Mehmet (FSM) bridge case’. The Court of Cassation overturned the ‘TRT/Digiturk case’ with 37 cadets, reopening the trial. However, the cadet students were sentenced to life after the Appeal Trial. The judicial process has proven that, in Turkey, lower instance courts do not abide by the higher courts’ decisions but instead act upon government orders. The ‘Sultanbeyli case’, where Ms. Melek Çetinkaya’s children are, is currently under review at the Court of Cassation and will probably be overturned in the coming months. Still, as in the ‘TRT/Digiturk case’, she believes the courts will not abide by this decision, and the detention of the children will continue. She hopes to be wrong and wishes that all the children are released, but the current government’s practices have proved it unlikely.[ix]
Ms. Melek Çetinkaya applied to the United Nations Human Rights Council Arbitrary Detention Working Group on behalf of her son for his case to be examined and decided. The file was indeed reviewed and decided upon, resulting in the immediate release of Taha Çetinkaya. Despite this, the Turkish legal system currently does not recognize either the European Court of Human Rights or any organs of the United Nations. As such, the decision is deemed invalid to the case at hand.
There are approximately 341 imprisoned student cadets. Three of them are female, and three of them passed away.[x]
Murat Tekin and Ragıp Enes Katran were brutally murdered by being lynched on the Bosphorus Bridge during the July 15th bloody coup attempt. They were found in the morgue after 12 days together and were unrecognizable. Their parents recognized the children by their fingernails. The families were not given a funeral vehicle or coffins and were refused to perform prayers. In addition, no funeral ceremonies were held, and they were told to bury the children in silence. The families were not given burial land for the corpses of these students. Still, their respective relatives had bought a family cemetery in advance, and the bodies could be buried there. The third student, Yusuf Kurt, died later. He was incarcerated for nine months, and extreme stress and pressure levels exacerbated a cancer development. Yusuf passed away a year ago with the burden of the pain he endured.[xi]
As mentioned above, three female students are held behind bars for the same reasons. They are detained in the Bakırköy Women’s closed prison. Their names are Nimet Ecem Gönüllü, Nagihan Yavuz and Sena Ogut Alan. These girls were 20 years old when they were arrested. Nagihan lost her father on 1st March 2022, but she could not attend her father’s funeral. Nimet Ecem, on the other hand, is a martyr’s daughter. Her father was martyred when she was three years old while he was serving as a senior lieutenant in the Turkish Air Force (TAF). Albeit a martyr’s daughter, she received a life sentence on a baseless allegation of being a member of a terrorist organization. The father of the other female detainee is an officer who retired from the TAF. Despite this, she was sentenced to life imprisonment for being a ‘traitor’ and a ‘terrorist’.
Melek Çetinkaya became the subject of a European thesis. Helena Vodopija, a graduate of Turcology and Anthropology, met with Çetinkaya for her master’s thesis “on the memories” of military students and their families who were sentenced to life imprisonment within the scope of the European Human Rights and Democratization Master’s Program of Luxembourg University on July 15th and the following period.[xii]
Melek Çetinkaya was a mother of three, living a modest life in Turkey. On the evening of July 15th, 2016, she became a mother seeking justice on the streets. She will continue her rightful struggle until she accomplishes releasing all arbitrarily detained cadets.
Written by Berkan Doğan Ünes
Edited by Olga Ruiz Pilato
Sources;
[i] https://politurco.com/arrest-of-ms-melek-cetinkaya-is-an-intervention-to-democracy.html [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[ii] https://politurco.com/melek-cetinkaya-turkish-state-under-erdogan-regime-took-me-out-on-the-street.html [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] https://www.duvarenglish.com/human-rights/2020/01/25/my-son-is-not-a-coup-plotter-a-mothers-struggle-to-prove-her-cadet-sons-innocence [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[vi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND5snMwA2JQ [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] https://politurco.com/melek-cetinkaya-turkish-state-under-erdogan-regime-took-me-out-on-the-street.html [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[ix] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HB6cRgf15w [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[x] https://politurco.com/melek-cetinkaya-turkish-state-under-erdogan-regime-took-me-out-on-the-street.html [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[xi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tofQTvdJlqk&t=290s [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
[xii] https://ahvalnews.com/tr/melek-cetinkaya/melek-cetinkaya-avrupada-tez-konusu-oldu [Accessed on 03/04/2022]
*Crop image from: https://www.tr724.com/melek-cetinkayanin-ogluna-hucre-cezasi/
Ilham Tohti,* a former ethnic Uyghur economics professor at the Beijing Minzu University, recently referred to as ‘China’s Mandela’ by the Guardian,[i] was detained on January 14th, 2014, for inciting separatism, ethnic hatred, and supporting terrorist activities because of his open criticism towards the Chinese governmental policies.[ii] Following his arrest, the two-day show trial between September 17th and 18th, 2014, that led to his condemnation and life imprisonment sentence, came as a great shock to many foreign as well as domestic observers, friends, and organizations who supported Ilham due to his prominent, intimidating, and foremost activism defending the autonomy, linguistic, cultural, and religious rights of minority ethnic Uyghurs. The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking and commonly Muslim group, mostly inhabiting in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (henceforth XUAR). Ilham has been referred to as ‘the Uyghur people’s conscience’.[iii]
Background
Ilham’s activism began in 1994 when he started writing about the violations suffered by Uyghurs in the XUAR. In 2006, he shifted the attention online when he and other scholars co-founded the website ‘Uyghur Online’ at uighurbiz.org. The website was a Chinese-language platform seeking to bridge the ongoing divisions between the Uyghur minority and the Han Chinese.[iv] The platform essentially served as a space on which Ilham could make the Uyghur voice heard domestically and internationally. It delved into how the Uyghur’s plight contained them feeling looked down upon by the general society and forgotten by the Chinese government regarding socio-economic development. Ilham would invite the Han to an open, peaceful, and rational platform to discuss and debate their differing views because, as he emphasised, the Han were not the enemies of the Uyghurs, despite their discriminatory and often violent attitude towards them.[v]
Through his website, Ilham promoted a peaceful and holistic approach and never once incited or encouraged violence. He was careful about clashing with governmental laws or underlying agreements that exist in civic society.[vi] However, the website began to attract the ire of the Chinese government, which shut the website down for the first time in June 2008 before China hosted the Olympic games. The government reasoned the shutdown on the basis that it publicised links to so-called Uyghur extremists based abroad.[vii] The major ethnic riots in Urumqi, the capital of the XUAR, and terrorist attacks inspired by a more aggressive reading of Islam on July 5th, 2009,[viii] resulted in approximately 200 people killed, 18,000 detained, and between 34 to 37 disappearances. Following this, Ilham openly spoke about the incident and published the names and faces of those who remained disappeared, eventually leading to his house arrest and later incommunicado detention on July 14th for roughly five weeks until, following international pressure, he was released.[ix]
Another crucial moment came when Ilham and his daughter, Jewher, were at the airport to board a flight to the U.S. because Ilham was to take up a position at Indiana University as a visiting scholar. He was stopped by the authorities, beaten, detained, and saw Jewher being put on the flight to the U.S. alone.[x] This incident marked the climax of Ilham’s story. In October 2013, an Uyghur family crashed their Jeep on the Jingshui Bridge of Tiananmen Square, which had been set on fire. The Chinese government labelled it a terrorist attack, which consequently resulted in Ilham increasing his visibility on foreign media of Britain, France, and the U.S., and led to ‘political policemen’ ramming into Ilham’s car on November 2nd when he was on his way to the airport to pick his mother up. The authorities used violence and intimidation, issuing threats to his family’s life if he did not stop talking to the foreign media.[xi] With the pressure being dialled up on Ilham to cease his vocal concerns, he began to express worry about his safety to his personal friends and, somewhat prophetically, in a telephone statement to Mihray Abdilim, a Uyghur Service reporter for Radio Free Asia, that surveillance on him by state security agents increased and felt as if his voice would soon be silenced. Based on this concern, he asked for his last words to be recorded and published only after his detention.[xii]
Arrest, violations, and a show trial
In January 2014, around 20 police officers raided Ilham’s apartment in Beijing and beat him in front of his two young children. They detained him and permanently shut his website down. On the following day, Hong Lei, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry, explained that he had been ‘criminally detained’. The charges for his detention were disclosed in February when the Bureau of Public Security announced his formal arrest for ‘separatism’ – a vague account that allows for capital punishment – and for recruiting followers from his website.[xiii] His arrest triggered a wave of support for Ilham on the grounds that he had visibly argued against calls for XUAR independence and was in favour of the region remaining a part of China. The website Foreign Policy published their analysis on several of Ilham’s cached articles as part of his evidentiary record, and nowhere did they find any direct or indirect expression of separatism or independence.[xiv] Ilham was held at an undisclosed location for five months, barred from any contact with family or friends, and withheld from meeting his lawyer, Li Fangping, until June 26th, when Li reported that Ilham was enervated at being shackled during the first 20 days of his detention and was refused Halal food for the first 10 days of March. These acts constitute violations of international law and arguably fall under the scope of acts of cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment. Many believe and fear that Ilham may have possibly endured torture.[xv]
Ilham only saw his family after eight months of his hasty and unfair trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment by September 23rd, but denies all charges brought against him.[xvi] During the trial, the Prosecutors said that Ilham was portraying terrorists as heroes in his classes, internationalised the ‘Uyghur Question’, and made use of student testimonies that are assumed to have been obtained under duress. Some students faced forced strip searches after Ilham’s arrest, were detained, and some of whom remained missing for long periods, thus highlighting the prosecutors’ attempt to build an incriminating case alleging that Ilham was not the peaceful person who made himself out to be but was instead dangerous in the eyes of Chinese security and had to be silenced by being locked away.[xvii]
Behind Ilham’s struggle
But what is Ilham Tohti’s case really about? Uyghur-Han tensions have existed since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), simmering into pockets of unrest bursting from time to time and triggering harsher policies against Uyghurs, especially after Xi Jinping took the helm of government in March 2013 and later unveiled the ‘grand strategic plan’ for the XUAR in December of the same year, with Ilham expressing concerns that the pressure on Uyghurs was about to increase.[xviii] The Chinese government has framed the issue as the ‘Uyghur Question’ or the ‘Xinjiang Problem’ which they have attempted to solve through a process of Sinification, one that has existed for many centuries in Chinese history and that entails the promotion of assimilation rather than integration. It later encouraged the Han Chinese to migrate to the region through policies that favoured the Han over the Uyghurs, and which resulted in an imbalance of socio-economic development. Ilham fell victim to China’s use of censorship technology and laws, where today, even a single post on the Twitter-like app of Sina Weibo can land its author in jail if it seemingly criticises the Chinese government.[xix] Ilham’s imprisonment proves that the Chinese government does not acknowledge the bridge between Uyghurs and the Han. In response to the supposed terror attack by the Uyghurs on Han Chinese in the Kunming train station in March 2014, the government declared a ‘People’s War on Terror’ and targeted scholars, activists, journalists, writers, and human rights lawyers throughout 2014.[xx] The underlying contradiction is that the internet serves as the primary tool to connect human beings across geographical, social, cultural, and linguistic borders and on which much of today’s commerce and communication takes place. Instead, the Chinese government’s ‘Great Firewall’ blocks the consumption of foreign content from entering China and uses the internet as a bludgeoning tool to censor and control digital content according to the approved narrative of China’s image, interests, and policies, criminalizing the spreading of ‘rumours’ online and establishing a pre-registration requirement for any online account that shares political opinions or statements.[xxi]
As the author of this piece, and along with my colleagues at Broken Chalk, I feel a close affinity to the tragic story of Ilham Tohti and many others like him because I, too, have a personal blog where I discuss my concerns about current global affairs. Exercising freedom of expression in the way that Ilham did through his ‘bridge blog’ is not a crime, nor should it unjustly label Ilham as a terrorism supporter, a drug peddler, a weapon seller, or an American agent. He truly sought to get Uyghurs and the Han to engage in conversations, overlook their differences, and become more united as common people. He chose to use peaceful and informed ways of educating others about Uyghurs opposing the narrative that paints them as terrorists, evil, and security risks to the ethos or foundation of Chinese society. Instead, he became a political martyr for ethnic Uyghurs in XUAR, receiving numerous awards for defending and seeking to expand human rights and freedoms,[xxii] and a beacon that continues to shed light upon the precarious situation that Uyghurs have faced in China’s internment camps since 2017, where numerous human rights violations take the form of beatings, torture, rape, killings, forced labour, and the sterilisation of Uyghur women.[xxiii]
Ultimately, Ilham is remembered as knowledgeable and courageous and as having a drive and determination to fight for ethnic Uyghurs, keeping his head up in the face of injustice and intimidation by Chinese authorities.
* To read and learn more about Ilham Tohti, there is a recent publication named ‘We Uyghurs Have No Say: An Imprisoned Writer Speaks’ (Verso Books). It is a series of collected essays and articles by Ilham prior to his detention. A paperback and eBook version are available at: https://bit.ly/3wiP6Mv
*Author’s note: throughout the article, his first name is used. In Uyghur culture, his last name, ‘Tohti’, refers to his father’s name, akin to saying that Ilham is the son of Tohti.
Written by Karl Baldacchino
Edited by Olga Ruiz Pilato
Sources;
[i] Kennedy, H. (2022) ‘We Uyghur’s Have No Say by Ilham Tohti Review – A People Ignored’. The Guardian. Available online from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/09/we-uyghurs-have-no-say-ilham-tohti-review-background-genocide-china [Accessed on 20/03/2022].
[ii] Makinen, J. (2014) ‘China’s Detention of Uighur Professor Ilham Tohti Worries U.S.’. Los Angeles Times. Available online from: https://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-china-detention-professor-20140117-story.html#axzz2qljh0LfJ [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also Wong, E. (2014) ‘Uighur Scholar Ilham Tohti Goes in Trial in China on Separatist Charges’. The New York Times. Available online from: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/world/asia/separatism-trial-of-ilham-tohti-uighur-scholar-begins-in-china.html?_r=0 [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also Wertime, D. (2014) ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’. China File. Available online from: https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/media/internet-where-nobody-says-anything [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also Amnesty International, ‘Academicus Ilham Tohti: Levenslang Gevangengezet’. Available online from: https://www.amnesty.nl/wat-we-doen/themas/sport-en-mensenrechten/ilham-tohti [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also Denyer, S. & Rauhala, E. (2016) ‘To Beijing’s Dismay, Jailed Uighur Scholar Winds Human Rights Award’. The Washington Post. Available online from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/to-beijings-dismay-jailed-uighur-scholar-wins-human-rights-award/2016/10/11/d07dff8c-8f85-11e6-81c3-fb2fde4e7164_story.html [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also PEN America, ‘Ilham Tohti’. Available online from: https://pen.org/advocacy-case/ilham-tohti/ [Accessed on 19/03/2022].
[iii] Woeser, T. (2009) ‘Interview with Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti’. YouTube. Available online from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQT0iN1nMk8 [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’; see also Johnson, I. (2014) ‘”They Don’t Want Moderate Uighurs”’. China File. Available online from: https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/they-dont-want-moderate-uighurs [Accessed on 19/03/2022].
[iv] ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’; see also ‘To Beijing’s Dismay, Jailed Uighur Scholar Winds Human Rights Award’; see also Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, ‘Ilham Tohti’. United States Congress. Available online from: https://humanrightscommission.house.gov/defending-freedom-project/prisoners-by-country/China/Ilham%20Tohti#:~:text=Biography%3A%20Ilham%20Tohti%20is%20a,regional%20autonomy%20laws%20in%20China. [Accessed on 19/03/2022].
[v] ) ‘Interview With Uyghur Scholar Ilham Tohti’; see also PEN America (2014) ‘Ilham Tohti: 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award Winner’. YouTube. Available online from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm6YLWrnKPw [Accessed 19/03/2022].
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] ‘Ilham Tohti’. United States Congress; see also ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’.
[viii] known as 7/5 due to it being a sensitive date in China
[ix] ‘They Don’t Want Moderate Uyghurs’; see also PEN America, ‘Ilham Tohti’; see also Tohti, I. (2013) ‘The Wounds of the Uyghur People Have Not Healed’. Radio Free Asia. Available online from: https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/wounds-07052013134813.html [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also ‘To Beijing’s Dismay, Jailed Uighur Scholar Winds Human Rights Award’.
[x] PEN America, ‘Ilham Tohti’.
[xi] Ibid.; see also ‘They Don’t Want Moderate Uyghurs’; see also Tohti, I. (2013) ‘Uyghur Scholar Tohti Speaks About His Concerns Before Detention’. Radio Free Asia. Available online from: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/interview-02072014182032.html [Accessed on 19/03/2022]; see also ‘China’s Detention of Uighur Professor Ilham Tohti Worries U.S.’.
[xii] ‘Uyghur Scholar Tohti Speaks About His Concerns Before Detention’; see also ‘They Don’t Want Moderate Uyghurs’.
[xiii] PEN America, ‘Ilham Tohti’; see also ‘China’s Detention of Uighur Professor Ilham Tohti Worries U.S.’; see also ‘Ilham Tohti’. United States Congress; see also ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’.
[xiv] ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’
[xv] Ibid.; see also ‘Uighur Scholar Ilham Tohti Goes in Trial in China on Separatist Charges’; see also Cao, Y. (2014) ‘China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate’. China File. Available online from: https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/china-2014-through-eyes-human-rights-advocate [Accessed on 20/03/2022].
[xvi] ‘Academicus Ilham Tohti: Levenslang Gevangengezet’; see also ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’; see also ‘Uighur Scholar Ilham Tohti Goes in Trial in China on Separatist Charges’; see also ‘China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate’.
[xvii] ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’; see also ‘China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate’; see also ‘China’s Detention of Uighur Professor Ilham Tohti Worries U.S.’; see also ‘They Don’t Want Moderate Uyghurs’; see also ‘To Beijing’s Dismay, Jailed Uighur Scholar Winds Human Rights Award’.
[xviii] PEN America, ‘Ilham Tohti’; see also European Foundation for South Asia Studies, ‘Language, Religion, and Surveillance: A Comparative Analysis of China’s Governance Models in Tibet and Xinjiang’. Available online from: https://www.efsas.org/publications/study-papers/comparative-analysis-of-governance-models-in-tibet-and-xinjiang/ [Accessed on 20/03/2022].
[xix] Ibid.; see also ‘China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate’; see also ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’.
[xx] ‘An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything’; see also ‘China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate’.
[xxi] Ibid.
[xxii] Ilham Tohti is the recipient of PEN America’s 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, the 2016 Martin Ennals Award for human rights defenders who show deep commitment and face great personal risk, Liberal International’s 2017 Prize for Freedom, was nominated in 2019 and 2020 for the Nobel Peace Prize, and awarded in 2019 Freedom Award by Freedom House, the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
[xxiii] ‘We Uyghur’s Have No Say by Ilham Tohti Review – A People Ignored’; see also ‘Academicus Ilham Tohti.
*cover photo taken from: https://www.omct.org/fr/ressources/declarations/ilham-tohti-2016-martin-ennals-award-laureate-for-human-rights-defender
Education has been suffering across the world due to Covid-19. The pandemic has resulted in disruption to life as people knew it. In most countries, the pandemic has resulted in the closing of classrooms and the deprivation of face-to-face contact and teaching. This has had an especially devastating impact for countries in the developing world. In rural India where internet facilities are still sparse to non-existent, the impact has been particularly terrible for students who are in need for education. While speaking to Education Times, Umakant Kumar, a headmaster in Banka Uttar Pradesh state, named states:
“The academic level of students has gone down to ground zero due to the prolonged closure of schools. The slight improvement that the students showed prior to the emergence of pandemic has completely disappeared. The syllabus for various classes has also not been completed which further adds to the challenges faced by us. Little that students knew, has also gone amiss due to the long gap in studies caused by the pandemic. Now when schools have reopened, we are helping students to retune them to the schooling culture and also working on how to bridge the learning deficiencies. It would be a herculean task at hand for us to complete a year’s syllabus in just a month as we haven’t been able to teach anything due to the closure of schools.”
In Mahahrashtra state, Kashinath D Bhoir, principal of Maharashtra Military school in Murbad town of Thane district says “Students have suffered a lot due to the closure of schools since the last two years as they have forgotten to read and write. Their writing speed has also decreased to a great extent. In addition to this, due to online classes many studies have got addicted to playing games on their mobile phones which also adds up to the weakening of their academic base.”
The real-life issues faced by the students and the education system can also be seen from a numbers perspective to gain a better idea of where things truly stand in India.
A study by the Institute for South Asian Studies in October 2021 estimates that schools in India had been closed for 69 weeks, which is the largest among the major economies. As a result of this, 1.5 million schools were shut down and 247 million primary and secondary students have been out of school since the lockdown of March 2020. A well-known Belgian born Indian economist Jean Dreze notes that in India’s poorest state, Jharkhand, close to “35 per cent of the students in cities and 42 per cent of the students in villages could not read more than few letters.”
In another state, Andhra Pradesh, as of mid-July 2021, “60,000 dropouts were estimated and enrolment for Grade 1 was only at 25 per cent.”
Due to these problems, hard-earned gains that India made since the early 1990s in educating the population and thus bringing Indian talent to professions such as IT, BPO, financial services to the forefront may be lost in the long term. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, upward mobility had barely changed in India thus creating a situation in which income remained stagnant. The kind of jobs created before the 1990s also as a result remained poor.
The school closures due to the pandemic has led to “learning losses from prolonged school closures” that “could cost India more than U$400 billion (S$542.88 billion) in future earnings, and could also result in social problems, income inequality and a ceiling on upward mobility” notes the study.
It is thus imperative for India to revive economic growth and prioritize the education of students with the urgency it deserves so that another lost generation as from the 50s the 80s is avoided.
By Aniruddh Rajendran
References:
https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/education-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-india/.
On the 20th of April, 2022 about 10 Turkish teachers and their families were deported from Liberia by the local government. The Turkish officials were administrators at Light International School System (LISS) located in Monrovia, Liberia.According to frontpageAfrica the names of some of the staff deported are as follows;the principal and general manager, Roman Mamedov, head of primary section, Mrs. Mamedov; English teacher and accountant, Elvin Rahimov; Mrs. Rahimov; Moral Education Teacher and Vice President for Administration Mehmet Simsek; Mrs. Ramazan. Ceray, Esma, a little girl in 6th grade and Enest, a boy in pre-primary section. It is reported that on wednesday, 20th of April, state security rounded up the schools Turkish staff and their families and deported them the same day.
According to sources, the deportation happens to be a request from the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan(“Erdogan’s Long Arm Reached Liberia: Turkish Teachers Deported – Politurco.com”, 2022). There has been no comments regarding this matter from both the government of Turkey as well as the government of Liberia. Following a meeting that was held at Turkish Light International School by parents and other officials to share this saddening news. The parents were simply told that the school’s Turkish administrators had been deported without any reasonable explanation(Writer, 2022). This saddening incident has affected students, local staff as well as parents in connection to Light international school as well as those from other international schools in the country. Although sources have not provided much regarding this matter, nonetheless it breaches human rights of these families as well as limiting the student under their management, the quality of education provided by the Turkish officials in Liberia.
The fourth United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, states that “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”(“Goal 4: Quality education”, 2022). The Turkish families who were deported from Liberia, supported this goal and were committed to making this a reality. The school that was under management of the deported family, Light International school brought a different perspective to the education system in Liberia with its high education quality, various programs such as science fairs, cultural festivals, mathematics Olympiads and abroad trips.
Despite all this beauty, the government of Liberia and the government of Turkey has not yet responded or taken action towards this incident to stand with the affected families.
Written by Ntchindi Chilongozi Theu
Bibliography
1.Erdogan’s Long Arm Reached Liberia: Turkish Teachers Deported – Politurco.com. (2022). Retrieved 27 April 2022, from https://politurco.com/erdogans-long-arm-reached-liberia-turkish-teachers-deported.html
2. Writer, S. (2022). ‘It is so sad for Liberia’ – Ali Kaya decries deportation of Light Int’l School’s Turkish Officials – Heritage Newspaper Liberia. Retrieved 29 April 2022, from https://www.heritagenewslib.com/index.php/component/k2/item/3624-it-is-so-sad-for-liberia-ali-kaya-decries-deportation-of-light-int-l-school-s-turkish-officials
3. Goal 4: Quality education. (2022). Retrieved 29 April 2022, from https://www1.undp.org/content/oslo-governance-centre/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-4-quality-education.html?utm_source=EN&utm_medium=GSR&utm_content=US_UNDP_PaidSearch_Brand_English&utm_campaign=CENTRAL&c_src=CENTRAL&c_src2=GSR&gclid=Cj0KCQjwma6TBhDIARIsAOKuANw9AjpTJe5dKGsib3cfL9MvujUxTay2IWDNG6pfDdipG4q5D13PcIMaAq7SEALw_wcB
The Turkish government is violating well-established domestic and international law by keeping severely ill prisoners arbitrarily detained. Prisoners in Turkey are struggling with sexual and physical violence such as bare-searching, harassment, and brutal beatings as well as many rights violations such as exorbitantly expensive canteens, midnight raids in the wards, book restrictions, denial of medicine and arbitrary punishments.[1] This article will shed light on some human rights violations cases taking place in Turkish prisons today.
Following the attempted coup in 2016, incarceration numbers have massively risen to the extent that prison overcrowding has become a prevalent issue. However, overcrowding is not the only concerning matter in prisons throughout Turkey, but the ill-treatment and human rights abuses happening to the tens of thousands of prisoners is a serious problem that must be tackled immediately.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been targeting followers of the Gülen moment, a faith-based group inspired by the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, since a series of corruption investigations took place in December 2013, implicating Erdogan, his relatives and inner circle.[2] Among the targeted are many opposition politicians, journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders. Yusuf Bekmezci (82), a gravely ill prisoner who was in custody at Kırıklar F-Type Prison in Izmir, died after 47 days in intensive care.[3] He was arrested in January 2020 as part of investigations into the Fetullah Gülen Movement. Bekmezci was remanded in Izmir Kırıklar F-Type Prison and sentenced to 17 years and 4 months imprisonment on 9 April 2021 on a charge being a “manager of an organisation”.[4] Saadet Aytekin, his granddaughter and lawyer stated that her “grandfather’s case was at the Supreme Court. His sentence had not been ratified. However, the court ruled that ‘he should continue to serve his sentence in hospital’ as if his conviction had been ratified. He had illnesses throughout his two-year detention, but they refused to release a man attached to tubes in intensive care because he was an “escape risk”.”[5] Indeed, the Turkish Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) issued a medical report stating that Bekmezci was unfit to remain incarcerated, but the court dismissed the report by stating he was at “flight risk”.[6] His daughter, Şeyma Bekmezci, stated her father’s inability to understand court proceedings in light of his advanced Alzheimer’s, which consequently made it impossible for him to defend himself. She suggested that the lack of proper mental health care in prison was one of the factors causing his deterioration: “he completely forgets himself in court and is in a vulnerable position”.[7]
Human Rights Association (İHD) declared that, as of June 2020, the numbers of sick inmates locked behind bars in Turkey amounted to 1,605, of which approximately 600 were in a critical condition. The government allowed their detainment even though most of them had forensic and medical reports deeming them unfit to remain incarcerated. Authorities refused their release on the basis that they pose a potential danger to society. The failure to release critically ill prisoners in time to receive proper medical treatment resulted in five deaths during the first eight months of 2020. After the pandemic hit, the government released prisoners charged with murder but decided to keep political prisoners in spite of the pandemic’s risks. Mugla died after contracting Covid-19.[8]
Throughout November and December 2021, several prisoners lost their lives while detained in Type T and Type F prisons. Prisoners Garibe Gezer and İlyas Demir were found dead in the padded cells where they had been isolated.[9] Some prisoners, such as 33-year-old Bangin Muhammed and 65-year-old Abdülrezzak Şuyur passed away due to failure of being released in spite of their severe illness and, in the latter case, advanced cancer.[10] Others were suspiciously found dead in their cells, and the administration informed their families that they had committed suicide.[11]
On the 20th of January 2022, 43 bar associations and lawyers as well as human rights organisations nationally and internationally signed an urgent letter for the United Nations special mandate holders to call attention to the imminent risk to health and life of the ill prisoner Aysel Tugluk, detained in Kocaeli Kandira F-Type Prison since December 2016.[12] Tugluk has been diagnosed with dementia and continues imprisoned despite the calls by medical reports demonstrating her precarious state and deteriorating health, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Providing additional information on systemic issues concerning the treatment of prisoners in Turkey, the letter requests that the Special Procedures urge the Turkish government to immediately release Aysel Tugluk and all severely ill prisoners in line with both domestic and international standards with regard to the treatment of prisoners.[13] Despite this, at the beginning
of February 2022, the imprisoned Turgay Deniz (39) suffered lung failure and lost his life while in arbitrary detention. Although medical reports stressed the importance of being cared for throughout hospitalisation, he remained incarcerated.[14] His story is one of eight stories of people that have passed away in Turkish prisons in the last three months.[15] 84-year-old Nusret Mugla was convicted and imprisoned for being a Gulen Movement sympathiser. His arrestment failed to consider his age, heart and kidney diseases, and prostate cancer, and as a result of the neglected assistance, he died incarcerated.
The press statement held in the İHD İstanbul Branch noted that the serious violations of rights in prisons are gradually becoming systematic and has reached a stalemate in healthcare, the right to communication, torture, and ill treatment respects.[16] Accessing justice has become hopeless for many prisoners in Turkey. The rights organisations raised concerns that “it is now seen as an ordinary incident in the country that the dead body of a person is taken out of a prison any time.”[17]
Referring to the İHD data, as of March 2021, there were at least 1,605 ill prisoners, 604 of whom were in precarious conditions at the time of the statement’s publishment.[18] Human rights organisations know of at least 38 prisoners who should be released urgently, as their conditions are further deteriorating. However, to date the authorities have not responded to calls either from human rights activists or from the families.
On behalf of Broken Chalk, I make an urgent call to all the international communities and organisations to take action against the injustices and inhumane treatments against political prisoners undertaken by Erdogan and his regime, and to assist them in their release from the degrading conditions they are detained in.
Written by Olga Ruiz Pilato
Sources;
[1] Duvar English, MHP submits social media proposal, seeks penalties for fake accounts, February 2022 <accessible at https://www.duvarenglish.com/mhp-submits-social-media-proposal-seeks-penalties-for-fake-accounts-news-60333>.
[2] Turkish Minute, Turkish court rejects ailing philanthropist’s appeal for release from prison, January 2022 <accessible at https://www.turkishminute.com/2022/01/12/kish-court-rejects-ailing-philanthropists-appeal-for-release-from-prison/>.
[3] MedyaNews, Turkey: Severely ill octogenarian prisoner dies, January 2022 <accessible at https://medyanews.net/turkey-severely-ill-octogenarian-prisoner-dies/>.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Turkish Minute, Turkish court rejects ailing philanthropist’s appeal for release from prison, January 2022 <accessible at https://www.turkishminute.com/2022/01/12/kish-court-rejects-ailing-philanthropists-appeal-for-release-from-prison/>.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Politurco, Gulenm sympathisers are dying in prisons under the ruling of the Erdogan regime, February 2022 <accessible at https://politurco.com/gulen-sympathizers-are-dying-in-prisons-under-the-ruling-of-the-erdogan-regime-84-year-old-nusret-mugla-was-one-of-the-many-and-died-most-recently.html>.
[9] English Bianet, At least 59 ill prisoners lost their lives in Turkey in a year, January 2022 <accessible at https://m.bianet.org/english/human-rights/256124-at-least-59-ill-prisoners-lost-their-lives-in-turkey-in-a-year>.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] International Federation for Human Rights, Turkey must immediately release Aysel Tugluk and other severely ill prisoners, January 2022 <accessible at https://www.fidh.org/en/region/europe-central-asia/turkey/turkey-must-immediately-release-aysel-tugluk-and-other-severely-ill>.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] English Bianet, At least 59 ill prisoners lost their lives in Turkey in a year, January 2022 <accessible at https://m.bianet.org/english/human-rights/256124-at-least-59-ill-prisoners-lost-their-lives-in-turkey-in-a-year>.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
Mahmud Darwish once wrote about war:
“The war will end. The leaders will shake hands. The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son. That girl will wait for her beloved husband. And those children will wait for their hero father. I don’t know who sold our homeland But I saw who paid the price.”[1]
Over the years, many countries have been destroyed by war and dictatorship. Many of these countries were developed before war had ruined them; full of culture and advancements, like Syria, Palestine, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and many more.
The greed and selfishness of dictators and corrupt politicians have caused nothing but loss to these countries. Many innocent lives have been lost; many countries are suffering from poverty as a result of poor governance by oppressive regimes. National infrastructures have collapsed because of wars, while these countries’ environments have also been greatly affected.
The Costs of War Project, Watson institute of international and public affairs, Brown University, 2021
Ukraine has now joined the train of the countries that have been destroyed by war due to the greed of dictators. Vladimir Putin didn’t only invade a neighbouring sovereign state, but his regime also exercises full censorship regarding the Russian presentation of and discussion on the war. Independent Russian media outlets and journalists who speak out against Putin’s regime and tell stories about Russians suffering under his leadership, are harassed, intimidated, and unlawfully detained. The same treatment is meted out to protestors who oppose Putin and the crimes committed by his regime in Ukraine, such as forcing young Russians to join the armed forces without informing them that they are going to participate in the invasion of Ukraine. All these are textbook examples of the workings of a totalitarian state.
How has Ukrainian education been affected by the war?
The impact of the war is clearly visible in the education sector: there is limited access to education due to a shortage of educational materials and poverty. Many educational facilities, such as schools and kindergartens, have been destroyed or damaged due to the war, which endanger the future of children in Ukraine. [2]
UNICEF recently published a report regarding the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to the report, the invasion has left more than 350,000 school children with no access to education, as school infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed. At the same time, the teaching methods Ukrainian teachers were trained to use have often become insufficient in these new circumstances, which also limit children’s access to quality education. This means, that the war has taken away the chances for Ukrainian children to have safe shelter, water, or proper education. [3]
Some issues Ukrainian child refugees face in host countries
Many Ukrainians have sought refuge in different countries since the start of the war. There has been a lot of concern for child refugees and how they can be incorporated into school systems in other countries, especially because of language barriers. Despite these challenges, schools in Poland, for example, have approached these issues with a positive attitude and welcomed Ukrainian child refugees trying to help their integration as much as possible. Polish teachers have been providing support for the new Ukrainian students to overcome the language barrier and adapt to the Polish education system[4].
However, not all countries have taken the challenge of this child refugee influx so well. Ukrainian children in the UK are facing significant challenges, as registering and integrating new students with often little or no knowledge of the English language exceeds the capacities of most British schools. Added to this, insufficient funding for the education sector puts UK schools under a lot of pressure, and results in refugee students being turned away [5]
The war’s effects on international students in Ukraine
International students who studied at Ukrainian universities, many of whom came from Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, also became victims of the war. Many of them were not able to complete their studies and were forced to escape to other countries in the hope that they would be able to come back to Ukraine soon and complete their studies.[6] Many of these foreign students have actually struggled to find refuge or to flee since they were not Ukrainian citizens and so their cases were handled differently by potential European host countries. Moreover, at least two foreign students were killed in the early days of the war. [7]
The effect of war on Post-Soviet States and on Russia:
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, citizens of post-Soviet states have been living in fear that Putin’s control will overtake their countries. An example from Azerbaijan is particularly worrying, where the Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev, signed an alliance agreement wit Russia. The 43-point agreement includes an educational and economic alliance which inevitably increases the Putin regime’s influence in Azerbaijan.[8] For example, Russian language is becoming mandatory in educational institutions, more so than it previously was in post-Soviet States.[10]
Lately, Russia’s Ministry of Education has started to spread propaganda via online education in an effort to influence children with ideologies that glorify Putin’s leadership and justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by explaining “why the liberation mission in Ukraine was necessary”.[11] There is a high risk that these lessons will contribute to the creation of a generation that supports both the war and Putin’s dictatorship in Russia, which poses a threat to the potential of a future democratic Russian society.
Hopefully, the day will come when wars end, and displaced people can return to the homelands where they left their loved ones. Leaders will shake hands to establish peace in the world, but at what cost will this happen when so much damage has been done already? Well, the homeland was sold for sure, and it was its very own people who paid the price.
By Zinat Asadova
Sources;
The right to education is a fundamental pillar of children’s rights. Achieving universal education, however, is a complex process that requires social policy to join with educational policy to develop strategies that bring about change. Bahrain is an island country located in western Asia, which, based on the projections of the latest United Nations data, has a population of about 1,773,831.
By Ntchindi Chilongozi Theu
41st_Session_UN_UPR_Country_Review_BahrainCover image by Allan Donque.
