A Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison | Hacker News Reader

A Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison

nature.com

128 pointsmbaytas37 comments

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-haeftlin... 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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?

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.

It seems like it would be a good thing for mainstream media outlets to not give their spotlight to terrorists

Why?

The terrorist's defining weapon is the propagation of irrational fear. When you broadcast their propaganda you become their weapon.

No, when you take away your citizens freedoms and liberties you become their weapon.

The politician who takes away freedoms is more like the accomplice.

It's like when a robber points a gun (fear based propaganda) at your head, and while you stand there paralyzed with fear their friend (the scheming politician) empties your pockets.

The media station which airs the fear based propaganda receives more views and profits, and the politcian that harangues on that fear gets more votes and power.

Its not a strech. Not showing videos released from terrorist groups, might be a valid strategy. After all, terrorism is a means of political communication through violence. When you remove one of the most potent channels of communication, you could remove the ability of these groups to 'terrorize'. Albeit, in times of facebook youtube and twitter this is not possible anymore.

So theoretically, a valid idea. Practically not possible and maybe even counterproductive.

There are some people so desperately crying out for us to stop our government from killing innocent people overseas without our consent that they feel the situation is all but hopeless, so they start killing and causing destruction themselves to draw attention to the problem, and government simply doesn't want the voters to see that.

In case this has to be said, no, I will never defend the killing of innocent people.

But the big question I ask myself, and ask of others: Are you innocent?

What kind of nonsensical comment is that?

My tax dollars pay for this: https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/

Do yours?

My taxes support this at least. Ramstein Air Base is a relay station in the drone wars and is partly supported by the German government. And I don't like it either. The scale of it is disproportionate and counterproductive. With each drone bombing, they kill 2 terrorists and create 20 new ones.

Then I'm not sure why you're calling my comment nonsensical. You agree with it. Cheers, have a good one.

That's an entirely different and far more rational argument for the policy. It does nothing to validate (and in some sense is the opposite of) the "secret messages" argument.

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.

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?

The article states:

"[They] released him early owing to the time he had already served in prison while awaiting trial."

It does. But he served 1 year while awaiting trial. So 6 - 1 = 5. He should still be serving almost 5 years now?

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.

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.

No, it reads: "He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December, a court declared him guilty of being a member of a terrorist organization and sentenced him to six years of imprisonment

The coup was in July 2016. He was arrested after 3 months (October 2016) and after waiting for more than a year in prison, the sentence was declared. This makes it December 2017. Anyway, that doesn't even matter. 6 minus 1 year is still 5 years, and the articles reads as he's already out. What am I missing?

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.

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