8 August 2005
His Excellency Robert Kocharian
President
Office of the President
Marshal Bagharmaina St. 26
375077 Yerevan
Armenia FAX: 37410 521 581
Dear President Kocharian:
I write as the general secretary of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), founded in 1915 by John Dewey, and dedicated to protecting the academic freedom of university faculty members.
I have learned that Yektan Turkyilmaz, a doctoral student in Anthropology at Duke Univeristy, has been arrested and imprisoned for doing little more than behaving as a scholar. Scholars collect books, conduct research, make notes, and eventually publish their findings-this is what a scholar does whether in Armenia or the United States. Mr. Turkyilmaz erred only in failing to understand that because of the age of the books he purchased in your nation he was obliged to declare them to Armenian customs. That he may have inadvertently violated your law is one thing, but entirely another to be imprisoned and facing a possible prison term of eight years for behaving as a scholar.
The AAUP urges you to release Mr. Turkyilmaz immediately and impose, if appropriate, a reasonable fine for his apparent transgression. Our 45,000 members believe that knowledge and scholarship recognize no territorial borders, that information must flow freely across international borders, and that scholars should not be punished for transmitting knowledge. I ask you to recognize Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights-the right to "receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers"-and release Yektan Turkylimaz.
Respectfully,
Roger W. Bowen
General Secretary
Cc: Embassy of Armenia, Washington, D.C.