According to the daily, renowned researchers and lecturers accuse illegal gangs nested within the state of being behind the threats. Among those who have received anonymous calls and written messages from unknown addresses are professors Sedat Laçiner and İhsan Bal from the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization (USAK), Professor Maya Arakon from İstanbul's Yeditepe University and Professor Önder Aytaç from Gazi University in Ankara.
The academics, who have made headlines with their remarks in favor of developing civilian solutions to Turkey's terrorism problem and the Kurdish issue, say they have even considered moving abroad.
“My colleague İhsan Bal and I received death threats for remarks we made on the democratic initiative. We then sought police protection. Those people think they can suppress such views if they silence two or three people,” Laçiner was quoted as saying by Star yesterday.
Arakon said she is determined to stand firm against the threats. “Some use violence against people with whose ideas they do not agree. I file a lawsuit every time I receive such a threat. So far, I have filed eight separate cases. I had seriously considered leaving the country to settle abroad, and some EU member countries have even offered me citizenship, but I will not move,” she said.
Aytaç has already been assigned several bodyguards. He said gangs which multiple investigations, such as that into Ergenekon, have begun to uncover can hire the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to carry out assassinations. “I was worried that the deep state would subcontract an [assassination] operation to the PKK,” he said.
