A Turkish court has acquitted a university lecturer over an exam question on a jailed Kurdish rebel chief, in a case that has raised fresh alarm over freedom of expression in Turkey.
Prosecutors had accused the Ankara University academic Resat Baris Unlu of “terrorist propoganda” after he set students a question comparing two documents written by Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). The exam question was set in January 2015 at the end of a course on Turkish politics and institutions.
When the trial opened on Wednesday, Unlu was faced with two separate charges of spreading “terrorist propaganda” and “praising the crime and the criminal” – charges which carry a maximum of seven years in prison.
But the 90-minute hearing ended in an acquittal, with the court ruling that the exam question and the subject taught in the course did not constitute any such crime, Unlu told Agence France-Presse.
Describing the case as a “blow to academic freedom”, he said the aim had been to “deter academics from raising political taboos such as the Kurdish problem.”
“It’s a kind of an ultimatum not to raise politically sensitive issues,” the academic said.
“I’ve also lost a whole year dealing with court procedures, whereas I could have spent that time on academic research.”
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