– Vi må gå foran som et godt eksempel og vise at vi er solidariske. Vi har tross alt noen av de største og ledende utdanningsinstitusjonene i Norge, sier Tone Bakken, økonomiansvarlig i SAIH Bergen.

Akademisk frihet forplikter

Scholars at Risk (SAR) skaffer midlertidige arbeidsmuligheter for akademikere som av politiske grunner ikke kan utføre sitt arbeid ved egen institusjon (se tidligere artikkel i Vox Publica om nettverket).

Under SAIHs kampanje 6.–10. oktober, vil lokallaget drive lobbyvirksomhet ved de tre institusjonene i Bergen, Handelshøyskolen. Universitetet og Høgskolen.

– Vi skal prøve å informere om nettverket gjennom samtaler og foredrag. Deretter skal vi prøve å komme i kontakt med folk som har litt innflytelse, og så får vi ta det derfra. Vårt mål er at flest mulig blir medlemmer, sier Bakken.

Politikerne har gitt SAIH nye og bedre kort på hånden. Marit Egner, rådgiver ved forsknings- og administrativ avdeling ved Universitetet i Oslo (UiO) og kontaktperson for SAR, viser til Stortingets endring av universitets- og høyskoleloven i fjor. “Universiteter og høyskoler skal fremme og verne akademisk frihet”, lyder formuleringen.

– Det står nå i loven. Derfor vil det være naturlig at flere universiteter blir med i nettverket, sier Egner.

– Få motargumenter

Lokallaget i Bergen vil også kjøre i gang en underskriftskampanje.

– Vi vil vise at studentene bryr seg og er engasjerte. Jo flere underskrifter vi får, jo lettere blir det å nå fram til institusjonene, sier Bakken.

SAIH Bergen vil stå på stand ved de ulike fakultetene under alle kampanjedagene, og har stor tro på at mange vil skrive under.

– Det finnes få motargumenter for akademisk frihet. Jeg tror ikke det blir vanskelig å få studentene engasjerte. Vi håper at så mange som mulig stiller opp, sier hun.

Siri Luthen, nestleder ved SAIH Norge, mener at et medlemskap i SAR først og fremst er en symbolsk handling.

– Man tar et viktig standpunkt som utdanningssted. Kampen for å få lov til å studere og forske på hva man vil er en internasjonal kamp, sier hun, og understreker at det å ta imot akademikere utenifra kan være en viktig ressurs for skolene.

– Å være vertskap for en student eller forsker fra et annet land kan gi nye impulser. Man får gode gjesteforelesere, ny kunnskap og nye perspektiver. Det er en situasjon alle vinner på.

– Gode erfaringer

Universitetet i Oslo ble medlem i SAR i 2001, og har så langt vært vertskap for to forskere, en fra Zimbabwe og en fra Iran.

– De hadde begge et opphold her på tre måneder. Våre erfaringer med nettverket er utelukkende gode, sier Marit Egner.

Som en del av nettverket har UiO fått mulighet til å sette akademisk frihet på dagsorden gjennom seminarer og debatter.

– Vi har vært med på seminarer både i Norge og internasjonalt. Det skjer jevnlig noe her ved universitetet som retter oppmerksomheten mot emnet. At vi er medlem i SAR, sier noe om hvilke verdier vi har som universitet, sier hun.

Nå ønsker hun flere med på laget, og er ikke i tvil om at Bergen bør følge etter.

– Jo flere vi blir, jo sterkere står vi, sier hun.

Selv drømmer hun om å bruke kunnskapen universitetet har fått gjennom nettverket til å hjelpe utdannede flyktninger som allerede er kommet til Norge.

– På en eller annen måte ønsker vi å knytte oss opp til disse, men vi er fremdeles bare i tenkeboksen. Noe mer enn det kan jeg ikke si, men vi tar gjerne med oss noen andre på laget, sier hun.

Se mer informasjon om kampanjen på SAIHs sider.

Sociologist and asylum-seeker Ali Tayefi chose the latter. “I left my identity. I lost my life and my family.”

He has been in Sweden for the past four years. He hopes he can stay on, or go somewhere else that’s safe. He does not want to go back to Iran, because he is afraid he will be put in jail. Swedish authorities are not of the same opinion, and Tayefi is presently an illegal immigrant in Sweden. “The Swedish judge asked me: ‘Why did you write something critical when you knew it was forbidden?’” Ali laughs dryly.

“I must follow my conscience and my heart. I have an obligation to my society.”

Recently he got in touch with Scholars at Risk, which is trying to help him to the USA. So is the American president of the organisation Sociologists Without Borders. But there are some serious obstacles, not least of which is that his passport has been confiscated.

UNISLAMIC STATISTICS: Sociologist Ali Tayefi could not live in the oppressive academic environment in Iran. “I could not publish a book on the brain drain. I asked my publisher why. He asked the Ministry of Culture. They just said that it was un-Islamic. Everything must be drawn from the Koran.” (Photo: Teresa Grøtan)

Ali Tayefi seems disillusioned. He has not seen his two children, now aged ten and 12, for four years. He does not speak much Swedish. Instead he is absorbed in Iranian academic life: Tayefi is the president of the Iranian branch of Sociologists Without Borders and runs two blogs about the situation in Iran (see his Sociology of Iran blog, in Persian).

Live two lives
The most recent protest against the Iranian regime occurred in October this year, as the Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presided over the ceremony opening the new academic year at the University of Tehran. Students called him a “dictator” and chanted “Death to the dictator!” They also protested against the imprisonment of student leaders. Only last year two students died in Iranian prisons.

According to Ali Tayefi, the fundamentalists in Iran want an Islamisation of the universities. They spread a dark shadow over the academic institutions and try to restrict academic freedom. “The academics have to assimilate to survive. Many try to teach secularism and democracy to their students in secret. In class they teach the way the clergy see fit, but in their free time they find other ways to meet and talk to the students.”

As a student, Tayefi was an active leader in demonstrations against the regime. Tayefi is a sociologist, but was never able to finish his PhD. His articles have been censored. Of the five books he has written, four are banned. Newspapers and magazines he contributed to have been closed down. He has never been able to get a permanent job. “I have encountered so many restrictions,” he says. For Tayefi it is clear this is because of his engagement in socio-cultural and political issues in Iran.

In 2003 the climate in Iran became increasingly hostile and oppressive and he left, after having been in Sweden and Germany to speak about the situation back home. Three months after his departure, the two people he travelled with, a professor at the University of Tehran and a journalist, were arrested. One of them now lives in exile in the USA and the other has “adapted” to the system.

Ali Tayefi is upset with the Swedish immigration authorities. He is tired of being suspected of coming to the country for the money. “I do not have an economic problem. I have an ideological problem with the Islamic regime.”

It is freedom that he seeks. Freedom to express what he believes is right. Freedom to publish results from his research on the social situation in Iran. Tayefi has done studies on prostitution, on street children, on violence against women and on the brain drain; there are 5.000 Iranian professors in the USA and Canada, yet only 1.800 in the whole of Iran.

He characterises the oppression of academics, journalists and writers as a form of torture. “When you cannot speak publicly about your field of study or publish your ideas, you are being tortured,” Tayefi says.

Political filter
After the revolution in Iran in 1979, the universities were closed for three years, during which time all academics who did not agree with the revolution were dismissed. Many went to the USA or to Europe. According to Tayefi, there is a political filter for all people who seek a job in academia in Iran. “You are questioned about everything: your political ideas, your family, your opinion on Islam, your ethics, morals, your background in education and work and so on.” If your answers are not in accordance with Islamic ideology, you will not get the job.

Scholars continue to be pensioned off if they are found to have un-Islamic views. The Islamic theocracy is trying to impose its worldview on academia. According to Tayefi, the clergy, who also are in charge at the universities, believe all new science is Westernized. The intelligence apparatus, which is large and powerful in society at large, is particularly active in the universities: “The clergy do not trust the academics. They are prejudiced,” Tayefi says.

Ali Tayefi does not doubt that the political climate will change in Iran. Eventually. “History proves that science will win in the confrontation between science and religion. The religious way of thinking cannot survive in academia.” And he believes in the new generation: “Many young people have a new vision and are in conflict with the old men who are in control of society. The young people today live with so many restrictions. Many do not understand the revolution; they do not want Islamic thought,” Tayefi says. “They have new ideas about equality and social justice. The system cannot control all ideas and record all activities. This is my hope.”

Teresa Grøtan is the editor of Global Knowledge magazine, where this article was first published (no.2, 2007).

Imprisoned in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his skin had taken on a green hue from starvation and his blood pressure was dangerously low. Blisters that had formed in the back of his throat from dehydration made it difficult to swallow. Distraught, hungry and panic-stricken, but most importantly innocent, this accomplished and admired professor was accused of endangering national security and consequently imprisoned under abysmal conditions.

LASTING LOVE: Even though there is a looming death sentence for Professor Felix Ulombe Kaputu’s life, he still longs for the green hills of his homeland. “I can think of nothing else but going back to the Congo,” he said. (Photo: Emmanuelle Françoy)

Today, Professor Kaputu is a visiting assistant professor of literature at Purchase, State University of New York, after spending last year as a resident research scholar at the Du Bois Institute for African and African American Studies at Harvard.

His lips are curled up in a careful, almost shy smile, but his eyes speak of suffering and loss. While he is safe in the US thanks to academic and financial assistance from the New York Institute of International Education and the guidance of the Scholars at Risk (SAR) network, he is still working on coming to terms with what happened in Lubumbashi on a beautiful spring day in April 2005.

A treacherous meeting
Born in the south of the Congo, Kaputu was raised in a country that, not unlike many countries in Africa, still suffers from the backlash from colonialism. More than ten million people are estimated to have died during the brutally exploitative reign of King Leopold II of Belgium, part of a century of Belgian rule. The Congo was never able to establish a stable government after the Belgians abruptly withdrew in 1960. The elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was overthrown that same year with US and European support for a cold war ally, Mobutu Sese Seko. Since then there have been many bloody internal conflicts in the Congo, which eventually culminated in a civil war that lasted four years and took more than four million lives.

Child soldiers make up ten percent of the army. Violence against women, including rape and forced sexual slavery, continues to soar and more than one thousand people die every day from starvation and lawlessness. As Kaputu learned first hand, members of the security forces are often poorly trained and paid, and commit serious human rights abuses.

While at Lubumbashi University, Kaputu was working as an associate professor of literature when the Director of Provincial Security requested a meeting one April morning in 2005.

“This was not unusual and I suspected no danger,” Kaputu said. He was often called in to cooperate and assist in matters of state in conjunction with his research. “I was actually excited that the director was interested in my work,” Kaputu added.

But the meeting was anything but cordial. Kaputu was interrogated by a general and accused of having bought and smuggled weapons while attending a conference on religion and gender differences in Japan. The general further insisted Kaputu was acting as the mastermind of a 20.000-man rebel army that intended to declare independence for the province of Katanga.

Kaputu had bought nothing more than a karate suit and a couple of books in Japan and was baffled by what he was hearing. “The claim was so absurd, I did not know how to react,” he recalled.

Kaputu then overheard the general telling some of the guards, “You have to really make him suffer — and don’t worry if he dies. He’s of no use to the president.”

Abysmal conditions
The morning of his capture, Kaputu had woken up at home as a distinguished professor — by day’s end, he was a prisoner in a small, dark, flea-infested holding cell. It would be months before his wife and three daughters would know of his whereabouts and suddenly panic set in. “I was convinced that this was it. But the next day I was at peace and ready for whatever would happen.”

Kaputu suffers from high blood pressure and was not only deprived of food, water and communication with the outside world, he was also denied medical care. “We were given a plastic bottle to urinate in, but after days without water that need vanished,” he continued.

The day he was imprisoned more than 60 men, doctors, leaders of opposition parties, military leaders and the son of a previous prime minister joined him in jail. They were illegally detained incommunicado for two weeks in Lubumbashi. Two weeks later, on 17 May 2005, 15 of the most high profile prisoners were transferred to the Makala central prison in Kinshasa.

“Here you are no longer a professor,” warned the prison warden when Kaputu arrived. “I am putting you in a cell reserved only for the most dangerous criminals,” he spat and slammed shut the heavy metal door behind Kaputu.

The conditions in the prison were abysmal. The stench from rotting corpses lingered in the small room with no light and no ceiling. During a storm the roof had blown off, allowing rainwater to collect in putrid puddles on the floor. When family members came to visit the prisoners, the guards would advise them not to waste their money.

“Once he is in here he is already dead,” they told them. Prisoners had been detained, forgotten about and left to die in these cells before.

Anything but forgotten
On the outside, however, Kaputu was anything but forgotten. On 26 May, Amnesty International issued a “Torture and ill-treatment/medical concern” based on the illegal imprisonment. Human rights groups and colleagues around the world lobbied tirelessly for Kaputu’s release. But it was one journalist in particular, Ghislaine Dupont, reporting for Radio France Internationale, who ensured that the pressure on the government was constant. She was relentless in her quest for answers. Where were the weapons? The soldiers? The training camps? Dupont’s reporting, coupled with pressure from Amnesty and other human rights advocates pressured the Congolese government into releasing Kaputu.

FREE AT LAST: Thanks to tireless efforts from Amnesty International, a relentless reporter and other human rights activists, Professor Felix Kaputu was freed from imprisonment in the Congo and is today working at Purchase, State University of New York. (Photo: Emmanuelle Françoy)

After more than four months in prison, Kaputu was freed and he returned to work the following day. However, his excitement at the prospect of teaching again waned quickly when he noticed there were soldiers outside the lecture hall guarding the door. It became clear that he would never again be free to teach and continue his research under this administration. The northern province of the Congo was intent on getting rid of intellectuals from the south and replacing academics with their own appointments. Kaputu suspected that the reason he was incarcerated in the first place was because of his close affiliation with the former president of Lubumbashi University who was an opposition member of the rebel organization, Rally for Congolese Democracy. Kaputu later assisted with his escape to Belgium; an act that resulted in Kaputu’s death warrant in the Congo.

News of professors, activists and journalists who just “happened to disappear” were all too common. Now, more than ever, his life was in danger. He made sure to always be accompanied by students when in public and took to never sleeping in the same place two nights in row. “Once you are accused, it’s forever,” Kaputu said.

He needed to leave. Through contacts at the American Embassy in Kinshasa, Kaputu managed to get a visa before he escaped to the US via South Africa. Later he was informed that the official who gave him the exit stamp from the Congo was imprisoned for letting him leave the country. Once in the US, a colleague at the university referred Kaputu to Scholars at Risk.

Silencing scholars
“I am not a politician, I am a university professor, that is enough in a human life,” Kaputu said. His hope is that intellectuals and scholars can one day cooperate with the government on improving the situation in the Congo. But currently, the authorities seem intent on silencing scholars, intellectuals and political opponents. Kaputu, rather than succumbing to self-censorship like so many of his colleagues, insisted on teaching his students how to think critically, strive for truth and achieve gender equality.

“I grew up in a poor family and I have worked very hard to get this far,” Kaputu continued, stressing the word “very” and pausing for a second. He turned around and glanced at the bookshelf on the wall in his office, bursting with books on mythology and the history and people of the Congo. “I could have left but I decided not to,” Kaputu said, almost inaudibly and added, “In fact, my interest in the Congo can not just be extinguished, it is a part of my life.”

Kaputu is not only grieving the loss of his motherland, he is also filled with worry about the safety of his wife and three daughters who are still in the Congo. Because of him, they are under surveillance at all times. Kaputu has not seen them since the morning of his arrest and he never got to say goodbye to his deceased mother who suffered a stroke on the day he was arrested.
It looks like Kaputu is in the US to stay, at least for a while. Purchase College is prepared to assist in any way it can. For now Kaputu has to live in the moment and take every day as it comes. While he takes great joy in teaching, his wounds from the time spent in prison have not yet healed. With a death warrant looming in the Congo, it would not be safe for him to return.
He still feels threatened, even in the US.

“I very much panicked,” Kaputu said after attending a conference in Manhattan recently. The Congolese government delegation was in the same city. “I did my best to avoid members from the delegation; I am not ready to face them,” Kaputu explained.

He knows he has no choice but to stay in the US, even though all he can think about is going back to the Congo.

“It was not easy to accept this,” Kaputu said, and added softly, “But, you know I am lucky to have learned so much from this suffering.”

Professor Felix Ulombe Kaputu

• Received his Master’s of Arts degree in Ugaritic and Middle Eastern Mythology from the University of Lubumbashi
• Awarded his PhD. in 2000, specializing in gender issues, religion, and university pedagogy
• Research concentrated on gender issues and the impact of religion, particularly in Central Africa
• Recipient of international grants and awards from the Belgian CIUF-CUD (2001, 2005), the International Association of Oral History (2002), Fulbright (2003), the Japanese Foundation (2005), and the International Association for the Study of Religion (2005)

About the authors:
Marianne Onsrud Jawanda is the Norwegian editor-in-chief for the Norway Times, based in Pelham, New York.
Emmanuelle Françoy is a French photographer and artist, based in Pelham, New York.

This article was originally published in Global Knowledge no. 2, 2007.

“In a sense the threatened scholars make up a micro-cosmos,” Quinn says. “They are pieces in a larger game where organised forces are trying to monopolise knowledge and where the forces of pluralism will organise a reply. The latter is more difficult, because you have to cooperate even with people you disagree with. The underlying questions are: How sincere are we in allowing plurality? And to what lengths are the oppressors willing to go in order to suppress ideas?”

Magical opportunity
SAR, established in 2000, brings together about 150 universities worldwide, most of them in the USA. More than 1.500 scholars from 110 countries have asked for help, and to date SAR has been able to assist 200 of them, offering them temporary academic positions at Western institutions.

“We do matchmaking. First and foremost it is about identifying scholars suffering physical threats or extreme harassment. Next step is to bring them to a safe country. Then we try to offer them relevant work. These are very brave scholars: they speak up, unlike most of us. Most of the scholars we approach have been nominated by NGOs, human rights organisations or fellow scholars,” Quinn says.

MAGICAL OPPORTUNITY: Hosting a scholar is a magical opportunity to expose one’s community to the essence of academic life, reminding us what it is all about, according to Robert Quinn, the executive director of Scholars at Risk (SAR). (Photo: Runo Isaksen)

The idea is that the academics contribute to their host campuses through teaching, research, lectures and other activities. And that they return to their home countries when it is safe to do so.

“I think ten years is the correct measure of return, although we do see people going back after five years. Iraq is a special case, of course. By and large the scholars fresh from their home countries are not ready to jump into full-time teaching. But they can start offering guest lectures, gradually offering more classes.”

In general, salary is offered by the host institution. The legal status of the scholars concerned may differ. Some are refugees, others are temporary visitors.

“As host institution you don’t have to do everything for the scholar. Just tell us what you can do and then we will figure out something. That is the way this network has survived and expanded,” Quinn explains, emphasising that the benefits for both parties are clear. Scholars are free to live and work without fear, and SAR members get talented and inspiring educators in return.

“It’s a benefit just standing with other institutions saying: ‘Scholars and universities should not be attacked for merely doing their job.’ Hosting a scholar is a magical opportunity to expose one’s community to the essence of academic life, reminding us what it is all about,” says Quinn, who recently visited Norway to enlist more Norwegian scholars and institutions. So far, the University of Oslo is the only Norwegian member of SAR.

Freedom and dialogue
Hosting threatened scholars like Felix Ulombe Kaputu is but one of the activities carried out by SAR.

“There are three tracks, of which hosting threatened scholars is one. But hosting a scholar does not help much if we are not able to strengthen the universities, too, and their place in society. This, then, is the second track: engaging faculties in setting up training workshops, notably in developing countries, to make them defenders of academic freedom and dialogue. We hope to see a snowball effect,” Quinn says.

A third track is research. SAR is currently conducting a survey asking questions such as: What are the core elements of a university? What is academic freedom? What means are available for responding to threats to universities?

“The problem is that this territory is so poorly mapped. In a sense we contribute to setting up a new subfield of study: academic freedom studies. For let us face it: there might very well be gaps even between the two of us as to the exact meaning of, say, academic freedom,” Quinn says, admitting that it is crucial to feel the way carefully and to build a dialogue aimed at developing shared understanding.

“There are many landmines: for example religious universities versus secular, private versus public, and so on. I think the network, by virtue of our experience with scholars in over 100 countries, can offer some framework for approaching these difficult questions. Of course advocating academic freedom will be a never-ending process.”

To Robert Quinn personally, interaction with the scholars who are willing to speak up in the face of oppression and the staff going out of their way to help these scholars has been the most interesting aspect of this work.

“In essence it is a wonderful look at humanity. So if you ask me, why bother? I will say: because not to bother will have devastating consequences in the long run. The tension is there not only in Iraq or Afghanistan, but also in Europe and the US. Again: how sincere are we in allowing plurality?”

SCHOLARS AT RISK NETWORK (SAR)

• International network of universities and university colleges
• Promotes academic freedom
• Defends threatened scholars
• Defends scholarly communities
• Membership: open to accredited higher education institutions in any country committed to the principle that scholars should be free to work without fear or intimidation
• Activities: Organises lectures, conferences and public education events and undertakes research and advocacy
• Financing: Sponsored by a variety of trusts and foundations, including the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Arcadia Trust and the Open Society Institute
• Secretariat: three full-time employees located at New York University

Runo Isaksen is an information adviser at The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU).

This article was originally published in Global Knowledge no.2, 2007.