Turkey: mathematician prevented from returning to France recovers his passport

A Turkish mathematician teaching at a French university who had been stranded for nearly two years in Turkey was able to recover his passport, his support committee announced on Twitter on Thursday (May 27th).

Arrested and imprisoned in Turkey for "

", then acquitted, Tuna Altinel was prevented from returning to France because of the Turkish authorities' refusal to return his passport to him.

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“

”reacted Tuna Altinel on Twitter.

Its support committee published a photo of a document certifying the delivery of the teacher's passport, specifying that the prefecture had appealed the judgment that allowed Tuna Altinel to recover her travel document.

"

," said Tuna Altinel, recognized in academia for her work on mathematical logic and group theory, in an interview in March with AFP.

Accused of "

belonging to a terrorist organization

"

His case had become one of the symbols of the repression against the academic world and the pro-Kurdish circles which strengthened after an attempted putsch against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. For this lecturer at the Claude-Bernard University in Lyon (central-eastern France), where he had lived for 25 years, the nightmare began in May 2019. While in Turkey on vacation, he learned that he could not leave the territory because he was accused of "

".

Incarcerated in the wake, he is tried for "

" for having participated in France in the meeting of a Kurdish friendly, during which he served as an interpreter. Released in July 2019, he was acquitted in January 2020. While he thought he could return to Lyon and "

" after this acquittal, Tuna Altinel was refused the return of his passport on several occasions, "

”. His university had voted in early April a motion asking French President Emmanuel Macron "

" so that he "

".