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Organization to Monitor Academic Freedom
Saad Idden Ibrahim, a sociologist at the American University in Cairo, was sentenced in May to seven years in prison with hard labor. His crime? As director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Developmental Research, Ibrahim led projects to increase voter participation in Egyptian elections. After he and his colleagues, twenty-seven of whom also received prison sentences, publicized irregularities in parliamentary elections held in 1995, the center became known for its outspoken criticism of the Egyptian government. The charges brought against the defendants included deliberately disseminating false information and malicious rumors about the country's internal affairs and tarnishing its reputation abroad.
According to the newly launched Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR), breaches of academic freedom and human rights are all too common in higher education worldwide. "Universities and colleges are often in the front line when a human-rights crisis occurs," wrote John Akker, executive director of NEAR, in the Times Higher Education Supplement. "Military rulers and authoritarian regimes close universities and colleges to stop the free expression of ideas."
The NEAR Web site tells the story of two academics prominent in Ethiopian public life who were jailed in Ethiopia for almost a month after having attended a panel discussion on political and academic freedom. In Tunisia a former professor of medicine who is also a human-rights activist was arbruptly dismissed from his post and imprisoned for disseminating information "liable to disturb the public order." And in China several scholars, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents, have been detained over the past half year; three were convicted of espionage, sentenced, and subsequently released
The goal of NEAR, which is sponsored by UNESCO, is to organize international protests against violations of academic freedom and human rights among professors, administrators, students, and others in the education sector. Its Web site <www.nearinternational.org> will help the organization achieve that goal by serving as a clearinghouse for information on developments around the world. Membership in NEAR is open to independent, nongovernmental organizations that have an interest in advancing academic freedom or human rights in education.
Longtime AAUP staff member Iris Molotsky, who is now a consultant to the Association, attended the inaugural meeting of NEAR in Paris on June 18 and 19. "With increasing numbers of violations of academic freedom being reported internationally," Molotsky comments, "it is important to monitor these incidents and to support academics whose voices are being silenced. NEAR offers the AAUP and other academic and human-rights organizations the ability to exchange information through centralized data collection and to coordinate efforts to protest violations."
At the close of the meeting, the AAUP joined other organizations in endorsing a NEAR press statement protesting the imprisonment of Ibrahim: "As we meet today to initiate a global network for monitoring threats to academic freedom and the human rights of educators and students, we are dismayed to learn about the [Egyptian] court's decision to punish legitimate research. . . . This decision highlights the need for global vigilance against threats to academic freedom."
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