NEWS CENTER - The writers' association has said that it has awarded Buğra because of her reactions after being targeted by the president over the Boğaziçi University protests.

 

PEN Turkey Writers' Association has granted its annual Duygu Asena Women's Rights Award to Emeritus Prof. Ayşe Buğra.

 

"She did not change her usual prudent and humble attitude in the face of the attacks against her personality and gave a lesson of humanity, conscience and decency by saying 'I am sorry for my country'," the association said in explaining why it awarded Buğra.

 

Prof. Buğra was targeted by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in relation to the protests against his appointment of a rector to Boğaziçi University.

 

"The wife of the person who is called Osman Kavala and is the representative of [George] Soros is among these provocateurs," Erdoğan said on February 5, accusing Buğra of inciting the protests.

 

"We present the 2021 PEN Duygu Asena Award with love and respect to Prof. Dr. Ayşe Buğra, who set an example with her existence, studies, books, attitude and identity of an educator and a scientist," said PEN.

 

"Ayşe Buğra is a world-class scholar of ours who won the 2015 World Social Sciences Award.

 

"We are going through a period where the concept of the university is being emptied more and more every day, the education system of our country is drifting away from contemporary and universal values, academic independence is under threat, the principles of the Republic are compromised, and steps of a counter-revolution is being tried to be implemented.

 

"In this period, Ayşe Buğra, who has the most respected place in the world scientific community, continued devoting herself to her students and educating them despite all the hardships and obstacles she faced.

 

"Again, in this period, she was subjected to insults, slanders and threats from the political authority, she was targeted and attempted to be humiliated. Her personal rights were attacked, she was wanted to pay a price as a Republican Intellectual and a woman.

 

"She did not change her usual prudent and humble attitude in the face of the attacks against her personality and gave a lesson of humanity, conscience and decency by saying 'I am sorry for my country'."

 

The award is named after Duygu Asena, a late feminist writer who pioneered the women's movement in Turkey in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

 

One of her novels, "Woman Has No Name" (Kadının Adı Yok) reached wide audiences and was banned in 1988 because of "obscenity."

 

The first Duygu Asena Award was given to journalist İpek Çalışlar in 2007.