Ayse Gül Altinay, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Gender and Women’s Studies Center at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, was one of the cooperation partners of Women’s Museum Istanbul to organise the the first Asian and European conference of women’s museums “Feminist Pedagogy: Museums, Memory Sites, Practices of Remembrance” in Istanbul in October 2018.
She was sentenced to 25 months in prison earlier this week. She is one of over 1200 Academics for Peace who three years ago signed a statement “We will not be a party to this crime” appealing for an end to violent state-sponsored persecution of Kurdish citizens of Turkey. In this, her fourth, judicial hearing, Altinay was charged with “willingly and knowingly supporting a terrorist organization as a non-member.
International Association of Women’s Museums, IAWM stand in solidarity for Ayse Gul Altinay and presently, in Turkey 700 signatories of the statement “We will not be a party to this crime” have been or are still on trial. They all need our support.