News/Events

SAR in the News Academic Freedom News Events Media Resources Report Threat / Incident

Scholars at Risk (SAR) members, staff and scholars assisted by the network frequently appear at conferences and other events, and are regularly featured in print, radio, and television reports. The following are past reports about the Network and assisted scholars.

Network News

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09/01/2008 The Netork of Concerned Historians Network of Concerned Historians Annual Report INTRODUCTION The Network of Concerned Historians (NCH) forwards to its participants news about the domain where history and human rights intersect, as reported by the American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS, Washington], Amnesty International [AI, London], Article 19 [A19, London], Human Rights Watch [HRW, Washington/New York], Index on Censorship [IOC, London], the Network of Education and Academic Rights [NEAR, London], International PEN Writers in Prison Committee [PEN, London], Scholars at Risk [SAR, New York], and other sources. It reports about the censorship of history, the persecution of historians around the globe, and related topics. The fact that NCH presents this news does not imply that it shares the views and beliefs of the historians and others mentioned in it. This Annual Report and previous Annual Reports were compiled by Antoon De Baets and revised by Ingrid Sennema. more...
06/29/2008 University World News Call for worldwide defence of academic freedom Academic freedom worldwide must be strengthened through a better defence of core university values and greater solidarity within higher education communities. This was the conclusion from a conference organised by the New York-based Scholars at Risk organisation at the European Humanities University in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. more...
05/07/2008 NEAR Academic Freedom Workshop, Amman, Jordan, March 31, 2008 Scholars at Risk (SAR) and the Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) held the first in a series of workshops on academic freedom in Amman, Jordan on March 31st, 2008. The workshop took place on the second day of a three day event organized in partnership with the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS) and hosted by the United Nations University (UNU) in Amman under the patronage of the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Jordan. more...
04/25/2008 Flyp Harbor From the Storm Scholars at Risk provides refuge for academics fleeing their countries for the crime of having spoken their minds. more...
02/01/2008 The Brown Daily Herald Seventeen international scholars visit Watson Institute The Watson Institute for International Studies is welcoming 17 new visitors-in-residence to Brown this semester who will participate in a variety of programs. more...

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11/15/2006 Houston Chronicle Dimming the Future The Houston Chronicle features an article on the challenges facing Iraqi academics. Robert Quinn, director of Scholars at Risk is quoted. more...
11/14/2006 Science Kidnappers Strike Iraqi Science Science features an article about the difficulties facing Iraqi scientists. The article describes the letter writing campaign launched by SAR urging authorities to improve security conditions for higher education communities in Iraq. more...
09/15/2006 Times Higher Education Supplement Give refugees a hand The Times Higher Education Supplement (UK) features a letter to the editor about the CARA/SAR UK Universities Network by CARA director John Akker. more...
03/21/2006 The Guardian (UK) Welcome Players The Guardian (UK) features an article about the newly launched CARA-SAR UK Network working to assist threatened and refugee scholars in the UK. NYU President John Sexton's lecture at the event is highlighted. more...
02/26/2006 The Ohio Plain Dealer Escape from Persecution Brings Prof to Ohio The Ohio Plain Dealer features an article about a SAR/SRF scholar from Rwanda hosted by Kent State University. more...
01/23/2006 NYU Today Alumnus Albert Podell Makes $1 Million Reunion Year Gift to School of Law NYU Today features article announcing $1 million gift to the NYU School of Law to establish the Albert Podell Global Scholar at Risk Fund. more...

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Scholar News

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07/06/2008 University World News Zimbabwe: 'Draconian' new higher education law A new law governing higher education institutions in Zimbabwe, soon to become operational, has been dismissed by critics as draconian. Minister for Higher and Tertiary Education Stan Mudenge announced that the government was in the process of appointing a nine-member board that will exert control over institutions under the legislation - the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education Act. more...
06/29/2008 Reuters Saudi wife calls for reformer's release RIYADH, June 29 (Reuters) - When Jamila al-Ukla's husband was taken by Saudi state security forces last month, she spent five days searching before finding him in prison, she says. more...
06/06/2008 The Chronicle of Higher Education Political-Science Association Rallies Behind Saudi Professor The American Political Science Association has appealed to the government of Saudi Arabia to release Matrouk al-Faleh, a political scientist and one of the country’s leading human-rights activists, who was arrested in Riyadh on May 19. more...
04/18/2008 The Miami Student Uzbekistan lecture addresses civil injustice Guest lecturer Nozima Kamalova spoke on the civil rights injustices in her native country of Uzbekistan Wednesday afternoon in Harrison Hall at Miami University. During her talk, she focused primarily on how personal liberty and personal security are balanced in a modern world. more...
03/18/2008 The Harvard Crimson 'A Professor Without a University' Former Baghdad University dean seeks to shed light on Scheherazade through Shakespeare more...
03/03/2008 The Daily Courier Lecture focuses on Rwandan genocide Dr. Jean-Marie Kamatali, former dean of the law school at the National University of Rwanda, will discuss "Back Together Again: The Challenge of Post-Conflict and Post-Dictatorship Societies" from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the Davis Learning Center auditorium at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. more...
02/22/2008 Open Source Iran in the Long View: Benham Abu Al-Souf Listen to the archeologist Behnam Abu Al-Souf long enough, and youâ€™ll be hearing the Iraqi uncle you never knew you had. Dr. Ben as I call him is a great bear of muscular, hands-on scholarship. For half a century he has been an eminence in the excavation and preservation of neolithic Northern Iraq. By now he is a sort of Father Time from Mesopotamia, a man with ten or fifteen thousand years of historical memory in his head, about the land for which archeology was invented. He is at Brown this winter, a â€œscholar at risk.â€ And we have been having this long, free-ranging conversation about the recent and ancient past of Iraq, about the Baghdad he finally escaped (â€I came out of Hellâ€), and sometimes about the future of his country. more...
02/19/2008 Human Rights Watch Burma: Arrest of Journalists Highlights Junta's Intolerance (New York, February 19, 2008) ï¿½ The Burmese governmentï¿½s arrest of two journalists and its decision to extend the detention of a prominent opposition leader demonstrate its continuing contempt for political freedoms despite its preparations for a constitutional referendum in May, Human Rights Watch said today. more...
02/18/2008 Iran Press Service The Fight for Iran's Freedoms NEWSWEEK Feb 18, 2008 Issue It is easy to criticize U.S. policy toward the Middle East today: Washington's militaristic approach has contributed to the growth of fundamentalism and helped strengthen dictatorial regimes. Still, Iran's fundamentalist rulers often use such criticism as a way of disguising their own ineptitude and their responsibility for Iran's deplorable conditionsâ€” including the suppression of civil society, which is undergoing another severe crackdown as I write. more...
02/17/2008 Parade My Life Under a Dictator Growing up in Zimbabwe, I dreamed of being a teacher. My mother taught elementary school, and I was inspired by the world of ideas. When I was young, my country was a highly educated society with a strong economy. We had plenty of food to eat and a sense of freedom. more...
02/04/2008 News @ UoT U of T's Scholars-at-Risk program: Haven for scholars Professor Fereshteh Molavi often sits at her desk in Massey College surrounded by Persian literature, which is both her passion and a reminder of her culture. It's a subject she has decided to make her calling at the University of Toronto. As a member of the Scholars-at-Risk program at Massey College, she has been given the chance to teach Persian literature in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, a privilege she didn't have in her home country of Iran. more...
01/23/2008 E-Bangladesh Teachers freed, students still behind bars Three Dhaka University teachers charged with breaching the Emergency Powers Rules during the August 2007 campus protests were freed from jail Tuesday on a presidential clemency. No application was filed for the mercy. DUTA president Sadrul Amin, general secretary Anwar Hossain, Social Sciences dean Harun-or-Rashid, were released after the president suo moto remitted the sentences they were given hours before. Applied Physics and Electronics department chair, Neem Chandra Bhowmick, was released after being acquitted of the charges in two cases over the campus protests of August 21 and 22, 2007. Eleven students, one of whom is still detained in jail, were also acquitted of the charges. Eight students, detained in jail, however, were not released Tuesday although they were either acquitted of the charges along with the teachers or the cases they faced were supposed to be withdrawn. more...
01/18/2008 CBC Ottawa French-Iranian filmmaker released from Iran France's Foreign Ministry confirmed the return of Montreal-based filmmaker Mehrnoushe Solouki to Paris late Friday morning, the same day Iranian officials permitted her departure after nearly a year in Tehran. more...

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12/12/2007 The New York Times Former Iranian President Publicly Assails Ahmadinejad TEHRAN — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies were attacked Tuesday at Tehran’s major university in an unusual speech by his predecessor, who warned that political suppression, questionable economic policies and defiance on the nuclear issue were leading Iranians in the wrong direction. more...
12/07/2007 Washington Square News Brownstone Magazine Endangered Minds Just over a year ago, professor Dumisani Ngwenya found himself sitting on the floor of a police station in his native Zimbabwe, shirtless and shoeless, exposed to the prying gaze of each passerby. This was a scare tactic. In Zimbabwe, it is illegal to criticize the government in public. Because President Robert Mugabe also acts as president of all public universities, free speech does not exist in the classroom. Deeply opposed to President Mugabe's internationally criticized administration, Ngwenya challenged the government in his lectures and encouraged his students to do so as well. more...
10/04/2007 Peace Review From Baghdad to the United Kingdom As civilized cultures disintegrate in Iraq, the focus of human rights violations shift to target professionals who are often those possessing the attributes to heal a country in turmoil. Because academics are well-placed to challenge ideologies that are flawed, efforts are made to control or silence them. This is done to maintain or gain dominance of a particular sect or ethnic group. more...
09/23/2007 The Journal News Professor who survived persecution in Congo is teaching at Purchase Felix Ulombe Kaputu is thankful for the little things in life, after spending 4 1/2 months in a muddy, flea-infested prison cell. "This is what we dream of in the academic world - an office with a computer," Kaputu says. "This is what I dream about as a professor; this is enough for me." Kaputu, who began teaching at Purchase College this fall, was jailed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Africa, after the government accused him of helping to start a political revolution. Kaputu is working at Purchase through Scholars at Risk, a network of more than 150 schools that hosts scholars threatened in their native countries. more...
06/19/2007 The Boston Globe Point of no return Shahriar Mandanipour thought the yearlong International Writers Project at Brown University would give him a well-needed break. The Iranian fiction writer is renown ed in his country for his short stories and novels. But the specter of censorship in Iran weighed upon him. "I lost the passion for writing," he says. more...

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