Free to think 2019: new report from Scholars at Risk analyses attacks on higher education communities

EUA partner Scholars at Risk (SAR) released the report Free to Think 2019 analysing 324 attacks on higher education communities in 56 countries between 1 September 2018 and 31 August 2019.

The report draws on data from SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project to identify trends related to violent attacks on higher education communities, including a series of deadly bombings targeting scholars and students in Afghanistan, wrongful imprisonments and prosecutions of scholars, particularly in Turkey and Sudan, pressures on student expression involving more than one hundred documented incidents around the world, and restrictions on academic travel, deployed most prominently by authorities in the U.S., Israel, and China.

“Since 2011, SAR has reported over fourteen hundred attacks on higher education in over one hundred countries. These attacks challenge everybody’s freedom to raise difficult questions and share ideas,” says Clare Robinson, SAR’s Advocacy Director. “Free to Think demands urgent action from governments, higher education leaders, and civil society to actively protect higher education communities and defend academic freedom.”

More information here.