A human rights lawyer's appeal to academics

Academe, Jul/Aug 1999 by Saunders, Joseph

From Iran to Malaysia, professors are under attack. Academic organizations like the AAUP must rise to their defense.

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS SUCH as Human Rights Watch, where I work, often campaign on behalf of embattled academics. There is no shortage of cases. Here are a few examples.

In May 1998, the Serbian parliament, under pressure from Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, passed a law giving government officials de facto control over universities throughout the country. In subsequent months, deans and other administrators were thrown out, and leaders of the ruling parties put their political allies in charge of the campuses. The new appointees suspended or fired dozens of academics who had supported peaceful, anti-Milosevic protests in 1996-97. This group included some of the most prominent scientists and scholars in the country.

Pursuant to long-standing discriminatory practices in Iran, reinforced by a 1991 government decree, adherents of the Baha'i faith who openly practice their religion are prohibited from attending state universities. In response, the Iranian Baha'i community has formed the Baha'i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE), a network of home-schooling programs. In late September and early October 1998, police acting under the direction of the Iranian Ministry of Information arrested thirty-six BIHE faculty members and raided over five hundred homes, most of which had been serving as classrooms for the BIHE. In April 1999, four of those arrested were sentenced to three- to ten-year jail terms.

In November 1997, with dense haze blanketing Malaysia from forest fires in neighboring Indonesia, the Malaysian government issued a circular requiring that all researchers investigating the public health consequences of the air pollution have their work screened and preapproved by "higher authorities." The government claimed that the screening was necessary because the foreign press had been manipulating speculative reports on the ill effects of the haze and unfairly tarnishing the reputation of the country.

Universities the world over are expected to provide a protected space for free inquiry and expression and play a central role in shaping the quality and flow of information and ideas in society. Partly for these very reasons, academics are disproportionately represented among the world's political prisoners, and universities are favorite targets of repression. As suggested by the cases sketched above, academics continue to be subjected to many abuses, including arbitrary dismissal, overt discrimination, and academic censorship. A university in the fullest sense of the term cannot exist where basic civil and political liberties are not respected. Conversely, strong, autonomous universities are integral to the development of civil society and the promotion of human rights.

Unfortunately, while governments increasingly recognize the importance of universities in promoting technological and economic progress, many continue to deny equal access to educational institutions to women and members of unpopular minorities and aggressively restrict the scope of expression and inquiry on campus. International human rights standards offer academics a principled basis for resisting such measures and a principled basis for speaking out when overseas colleagues are targeted. Freedom of expression, defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to include "freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers," is a case in point.

Although international attention to the right to free expression has understandably emphasized artistic freedom and freedom of the press (essential attributes of an open, democratic society), institutions of higher education have played a critical role in preserving and giving meaning to the right. Even when academics are targeted for extramural speech unrelated to their areas of study, other academics have reason to be concerned. Because of the high profile of universities and of many of the academics who are targeted, such attacks often play an exemplary role, serving as a warning to individuals throughout society that dissent and political opposition will not be tolerated. Academic inquiry suffers under such a climate of censorship.

International human rights standards also forbid invidious discrimination. The Universal Declaration specifically mandates that higher education be made "equally accessible to all on the basis of merit" and declares that "every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for [human rights]."

Recognizing that academic freedom and respect for the basic rights of academics is a sensitive barometer of free expression worldwide, Human Rights Watch in 1991 organized the Committee on International Academic Freedom (subsequently renamed the Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee). The members of the committee include a dozen or so university presidents and several prominent academics, including figures such as Ariel Dorfman, Fang Lizhi, and Yuri Orlov, people who themselves once suffered at the hands of repressive governments. In 1996, the organization for the first time hired a researcher to work full time on academic freedom issues, aiming to document and publicize abuses in greater detail. In 1998, the primary focus of our work was Indonesia, undergoing transition after thirty-two years of authoritarian rule, and Serbia, for the reasons described above. This year, we intend to examine violations of the free-expression rights of academics in Belarus, censorship in Egyptian universities, and discrimination issues in Uzbekistan. We will also continue to monitor such matters as the impact of Communist Party controls on Chinese universities, systematic discrimination against women and girls in educational institutions in Afghanistan, restrictions on political expression on campuses in Uganda, and sacrifice of academic freedom standards by Western universities that enter into joint ventures in countries where free expression and academic freedom are not protected.