On May 29, 2019, Dr. Serkan Golge, a physicist and dual U.S.-Turkish citizen, was released from Iskenderun Prison in Turkey, after nearly three years in detention.

Dr. Golge was taken into custody on July 23, 2016 while visiting family in Turkey.  In February 2018, he was convicted on national security-related charges and sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, although no credible evidence was ever presented to support the charges against him.  This sentence was later reduced to five years on appeal.  Dr. Golge was held in solitary confinement during his detention  and, for more than a year, was denied access to U.S. consular services.  At the time of his arrest, he was a resident of Houston, Texas, where he worked as a senior research scientist at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Johnson Space Center and lived with his wife and two young children, who are also U.S. citizens.Since the Constitutional Court ruling, we understand that more than 480 peace petition signatories have received acquittals.  Many, however, remain unable to return to their academic work.  Last month, the Academics for Peace issued a public statement calling for the reinstatement of those academics dismissed from their universities by statutory decree and the return of passports to the academics whose travel documents had been confiscated.