Expert: Turkey (July 21, 2016)

"Turkey has banned all academics from leaving the country, cancelling their annual leave, as President Tayyip Erdogan's post-coup crackdown escalated to 'exceptional proportions'. One British academic at a state-run university in Istanbul told the Telegraph that foreign nationals had also been told to come back to work." (The Telegraph)

Payam Akhavan, Faculty of Law, McGill University

"It seems the attempted military coup has become a pretext for further repression against civil society in Turkey. This follows a trend that started some months ago to gradually dismantle democratic institutions. From a thriving regional power Turkey is now on the brink of disaster with grave consequences for the middle-east."-Payam Akhavan

Professor Akhavan teaches and researches on public international law, international dispute settlement, international criminal law, human rights and cultural pluralism. He had cases in the past against Turkey before the European Court of Human Rights.

payam.akhavan [at] mcgill.ca. He's available for phone interviews.