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An independent United Nations expert today urged the Tunisian Government to ensure that human rights, especially the right to education, are kept at the heart of the historic reforms taking place in the North African nation.

A crucial bill that makes it mandatory for every higher educational institute (except agricultural institutes) and every course to be accredited by an independent agency is likely to come up in the Union Cabinet on Thursday. The bill, if passed, will give students an assessment of the college and course that they are applying for.

Matthew Reisz meets a refugee academic given new life, just like the one saved by THE readers' support

Scholars returning after years in Western universities can struggle to assimilate. Carolynne Wheeler writes

Aung San Suu Kyi will work within Burma's parliament to make the banned union a legal entity.

The following is a guest post by Robert Quinn, executive director of the Scholars at Risk Network, which promotes academic freedom and advocates on behalf of threatened scholars worldwide. The nonprofit organization is based at New York University and has member institutions in 34 countries.

Iranian authorities should immediately free dozens of university students currently behind bars solely for peacefully expressing political opinions, and end harassment of student activists on university campuses throughout the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch issued the call as part of a joint campaign initiated by Iranian and international student and rights groups to highlight the government's systematic crackdown against university students for their political activism.

A prominent Iranian literary translator imprisoned since January on unknown charges has suspended his hunger strike after 28 days, a source close to the family said Thursday.

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the University of Minnesota could not be sued because the website of one of its research centers had labeled another website "unreliable."

EI has learned that the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court has adjourned the case of Mahdi Issa Abu Dheeb and Jalila Al-Salman, from the Bahraini Teachers Association (BTA), to 30 May, and refused to release Mahdi on bail once more. Both were arrested after a crackdown by authorities following pro-democracy demonstrations.

4 May 2012 - A group of independent United Nations experts today condemned the ongoing arrests and harsh sentencing of human rights defenders in Iran, and urged the Government to ensure they are provided with adequate protection.

The movement to economically isolate Israel to protest its treatment of Palestinians has led to heavy trading in recriminations among American scholars and sparked debate over the limits of free speech and academic freedom.

PARIS — A Paris court on Friday sentenced a French-Algerian particle physicist to five years in prison, one of them suspended, on the charge of “criminal association with the intent to prepare terrorist acts,� ruling that the man’s online correspondence in 2009 with a presumed member of Al Qaeda constituted a criminal act.

The Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has been offered a fellowship at New York University law school, where he will be allowed to study under a tentative agreement between the Chinese and U.S. governments. NYU issued a two-sentence statement regarding the move: “Chen Guangcheng has long-established relationships with faculty at the NYU School of Law, and has an invitation to be a visiting scholar at NYU—either in New York or at one of our other global sites. As a visiting scholar, he would be...

Dadkhah has defended several people on death row in Iran, including pastor Yusuf Naderkhani who is jailed for apostasy

In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans — one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world — Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities.

Regenerative medicine gets cash boost but stricter regulations are needed to ensure safety.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has received a US$1-million donation from Lewis Branscomb (pictured), a physicist and former IBM vice-president, to set up a Center for Science and Democracy. The centre, to be launched on 17 May, aims to combine the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based union’s previous work beating back political interference in federal science, with an ongoing mission to ensure that US policy is based on sound scientific evidence.

Court of Cassation orders re-trial in the Court of Appeals of the 21 defendants charged with attempting to topple state government

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) Several academics urged the Formosa Plastics Group on Sunday to drop its lawsuit against a university professor who published a report that said one of the group's factories in Yunlin County was emitting air pollutants known to cause cancer.

Students in Iran who were involved in the 2009 anti-government protests will not be allowed to study at Iranian universities, Minister of Science, Research and Technology Kamran Daneshjoo has reiterated in a move that groups in exile say is aimed at cleansing universities of all opposition.

Malawi’s new President Joyce Banda has moved to end police impunity for violence against students and lecturers, with the arrest of six law enforcement agents in connection with the death in police custody of a student in January.

Scholars at Risk calls for letters in advance of the upcoming April 30th Court of Cassation hearing date on the appeal of Dr. Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Bahrain, Isa Town.

Chen Guangcheng, the blind rights lawyer who has been under extralegal house arrest in his rural village for the past 19 months, has escaped from his heavily guarded home and is in hiding in the capital, rights advocates and Chinese officials said on Friday.

The Dutch government has agreed to grant an export licence to allow Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus Medical University in Rotterdam, to publish his work on H5N1 avian influenza in Science.

GENEVA - Former Swiss President and newly-appointed Chair of the Martin Ennals Foundation, Micheline Calmy-Rey, today announced the nominees for the 2012 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) at a press conference at the Palais Eynard, Geneva, Switzerland. The MEA is the main award of the international human rights movement.

On Monday night, Yu Jie (余�), a prominent Chinese dissident living in exile in Fairfax, Virginia, visited Georgetown to address around 70 eager students in McShain Lounge Large. Jie’s main message was to urge students in Western universities to be weary of Chinese Communist Party motivations behind Confucius Institutes in an event sponsored by The Lecture Fund, GUSA, the Asian Studies Department, and the Office of Residence Life.

A member of the University of Arizona Board of Regents who led the crusade against teaching Mexican-American studies in Arizona high schools is now training his sights on the Mexican-American studies program at the university level. To do so would be a disturbing violation of academic freedom and a terrible precedent to set for other universities nationwide.

Antievolution legislature is gaining steam now that Tennessee's new "monkey bill" has taken effect

Moves to allow Malaysian university students to join political parties have failed to satisfy student activists, who say a legal amendment approved by Parliament last week will still infringe on their right to participate fully in politics.

A prominent Iranian literary translator imprisoned since January on unknown charges is now on a hunger strike, and relatives say he sounds weak and fragile, a source close to his family said Sunday.

Concerns that world-class professors would be deterred by the ongoing freedoms controversy over Yale University�s tie-up with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to create a liberal arts college in Singapore, have proved unfounded, according to the local university. It said recruitment was forging ahead.

A tenured professor of sociology at Appalachian State University has been placed on administrative leave following complaints last month from four students about her "inappropriate speech and conduct in the classroom," including showing a movie about pornography.

"The truth is that when I finally learned what happened, I was relieved," Aysenur Ozcan confessed. "At least she wasn't dead."

Academic freedom key to innovation in China, says politician. Carolynne Wheeler reports from Beijing

Belarus is banned from the Bologna process for at least another three years. The question of accession is completely removed from the agenda of the Summit of Ministers of Education of the European Higher Education Area, which will be held on April 26-27. Belarus will get a chance to join the Bologna process only in 2015.

The civil unrest that erupted in Syria in March last year has left the country's scientific community in turmoil, researchers say.

Cary Nelson visited University of Michigan – Flint as a part of the Critical Issues Forum to speak on the right to academic freedom.

Fresno State faculty union leaders accused the California State University administration of threatening academic freedom and job security for part-time teachers, causing a bargaining impasse and pushing the union to consider its second-ever, system-wide strike.

In a situation that stirred questions about academic freedom, a UCLA professor has been asked not to link his class online syllabus in the World Arts and Cultures/Dance Department to a website that called for a boycott of Israel, according to the head of the campus faculty Senate.

Saudi Ministry of Higher Education told colleges across the Kingdom on Saturday to enroll female students in their political science departments.

Malawi’s new President Joyce Banda has sacked the police chief who was at the centre of academic freedom protests last year.

Go to http://www.forskerforum.no/wip4/endelig-paa-trygg-grunn/d.epl?id=1272843 For the original article.

NEW DELHI: West Bengal police on Friday morning arrested a Jadavpur University professor for allegedly spreading "anti-Mamata Banerjee" cartoons on the internet, Times Now reported.