On May 31, then-Turkish President Abdullah Gul visited Harvard University. The event coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Gezi Park protests. Emrah Altindis, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, dared to remind Gul of the anniversary and asked whether he was embarrassed to be the president of Turkey. He said, “How do you sleep at night when your prime minister [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] declared a 14-year-old child [referring to Berkin Elvan] a terrorist? You have blood dripping from your hands.” Gul responded with visible disdain, saying, “Nobody will give you permission to ask such questions,” as he went on to explain how Altindis was blowing things out of proportion.
In early June, Altindis told Al-Monitor that he was aware that he would not have been allowed to complete such a sentence had the event been held in Turkey. The reactions were mixed, with overwhelming public support for his courage and the expected rage from anonymous, pro-government social media stalwarts. At the time, everyone thought the matter would blow over, but that was incorrect.
On Nov. 10, news arrived that Altindis had thereafter become a victim of libel. He told Al-Monitor, “On 17 July, a 19-page email was sent to all my department members at Harvard claiming that I was a member of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front.” The group, designated by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, was responsible for the attack on the US Embassy in Ankara on Jan. 31, 2013. Altindis explained that the email also told his colleagues that they as well as their families were at risk. It was not an allegation that could be ignored.
Altindis is only now sharing the news, because a police investigation has cleared him of any suspicion. Who sent the email has not yet been determined, but the IP address is from Ankara. When Al-Monitor asked Altindis whether he had contacted Turkish authorities, he said, “No, not yet.” Since June, he has been the target of systematic virtual attacks, which has become the norm for vocal critics of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Altindis does not know who the perpetrator or perpetrators might be.
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