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Dr Şebnem Korur Fincancı was imprisoned over her remarks on allegations of Turkey’s use of chemical weapons in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Academic Neşe Özgen said Fincancı was imprisoned in order to silence her, in an article penned for Gazete Duvar.
When the leading forensic medicine expert called for an independent investigation on allegations that the Turkish Armed Forces used chemical weapons against Kurdish fighters, she was arrested by the Turkish authorities.
Prof Neşe Özgen, an academic at Berlin’s Freie University, together with intellectuals such as Étienne Balibar and Rega Wood, petitioned for Fincancı’s release.
“The only thing the Turkish state could do was imprison Fincancı to silence her,” said the prominent sociologist said.
Özgen and Fincancı were at a conference in Germany together when it “became apparent that she was going to get arrested upon her return”, Özgen said. “We tried to convince her for quite some time to stay a bit longer. She responded with a Socrates quote: ‘I cannot throw away all the evidence I defended to date, just because a calamity has befallen me. They have not changed at all, and I have as much respect for them as before’.”
Fincancı was “arrested in a witch hunt, with her character defamed”, Özgen added.
“The use of chemical weapons is an international war crime,” Özgen said. “The world becomes a less safe and less liveable place with its silence on the matter.”
Özgen repeated Fincancı’s demand that all existing claims be thoroughly investigatated by an independent body.
