what the 'war on terror' can do to the freedom of ideas and intellectual work

Поли Чернева ми е препратила от Америка днес това писмо и реших, че може да заинтересова някои от читателите на блог ми.

Dear colleague,

today I want to inform you about an outrageousevent which I would have thought to be impossiblein a democratic Germany. Two weeks ago ourcolleague Andrej Holm - he is the author of the PRESOM study on privatisation research in Europe- was, together with three other persons -arrested under the allegation of "membership in aterrorist association". Since then he is underarrest. The charges against Andrej and the othersare mainly based on the observation, that- in their scientific publications they useconcepts which can also be found in the leafletsof a so-called "militant group" which is underobservation by the police in Berlin; as suchconcepts the general attorney names"gentrification" or "precarisation" , about whichAndrej has done extensive research and publishednationally and internationally;- the intellectual capacity to write suchintellectually high-level pamphlets as are known from the militant group,- access to libraries which they can use to doresearch necessary to draft such texts.These accusations as such are obviously absurd,because they apply to the majority of thescientific community. The fact that they are usedas justification for arrest and severeaccusations is nevertheless alarming. It seemsthat a thorough intimidation of all criticalscientists is envisaged, and therefore we are allpossible further targets of such activities.Meanwhile the protest against this authoritarianand antidemocratic procedure has become ratherstrong in Germany and has by now reached aninternational dimension. Last weekend the yearlyconference of the American Sociology Associationpublished an open letter to the federal generalattorney, analysing the procedure of theauthorities as the construction of a terroristgroup, protesting against the arrest of Andrej,and requesting his immediate release. I attachthis open letter and invite you to join the listof signatories. You can do this by writing to thesolidarity group in Berlin at einstellung@so36.net or by replying to mypresent letter indicating your support of theopen letter (which I will then forward to the solidarity group).

Best greetings,Jörg