Press Release

'Wake Up’ Call for government over attacks on academics

At an event in London on September 19, 2011, the British Academy and the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) called on Governments, UN Agencies and human rights organisations to be aware of increasing numbers of attacks on and persecution of academics around the world.

International scholars face persecution, torture and death for undertaking research and teaching.  Since 2003, over 350 academics have been assassinated in Iraq alone, eight of them this year, and many more have been kidnapped.

Chair of the CARA Council, Anne Lonsdale, said,

‘Governments, the UN and international agencies need to wake up.  Those who teach and research in many parts of the world are increasingly being targeted and forced to leave their home countries.’

Mrs Lonsdale spoke at the launch of the British Academy publication, In Defence of Learning, a collection of essays documenting CARA’s work supporting refugee academics since its foundation in 1933.  Originally established by British academics rescuing scientists and scholars from Nazi Europe, CARA is currently assisting over 150 professors and researchers from over 30 countries including Zimbabwe, Iran, Iraq and the Sudan.

President of the British Academy, Sir Adam Roberts said:

‘CARA’s work is as important now as when it was first founded. Over the years, the UK university system and society more generally has been a huge beneficiary of gifted academics fleeing repressive regimes.’

In the year of the 60th Anniversary of the UN Convention on Refugees many of the services that assist refugees are being withdrawn.  CARA has had to cut its employment advice and guidance because of withdrawal of funding by the EU and the UK Government.

Mrs Lonsdale added,

‘It can be a huge waste of their knowledge and experience if refugee academics are allowed to remain unemployed and undervalued in the countries they flee to.  A most important scheme in the UK that was designed to get them back into work was withdrawn earlier this year.  More needs to be done so that academics are given help when they come to the UK and the EU.’

 

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For further information or an interview with a representative of CARA or the British Academy, please contact Jayne Phenton, Press and PR Manager: 020 969 5263 / j.phenton@britac.ac.uk or Professor John Akker, Executive Secretary, CARA  07816 505 238 / akker.cara@lsbu.ac.uk


Editor’s notes

The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902, is the national body that champions and supports the humanities and social sciences. It aims to inspire, recognise and support excellence and high achievement across the UK and internationally.   For more information, please visit  www.britac.ac.uk

2.           CARA was formed in 1933 and has assisted over 10,000 academics including 18 Nobel Prize Winners. Albert Einstein who spoke at a fundraising meeting for CARA in 1933 said: “If we want to resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedoms we must keep clearly before us what is at stake. Without such freedoms there would be no Shakespeare, no Newton, no Faraday, and no Lister.’

3.            In Defence of Learning, The Plight, Persecution and Placement of Academic Refugees, 1933-1980s is published for the British Academy for Oxford University Press. To order a copy visit www.oup.co.uk or email Michael.burt@oup.com