Working in international scientific research labs we have since long good relations to our colleagues from different countries: even more, it was always one of the very positive and important aspects in our field, that we could talk and collaborate across any border and across any ideology.

Since spring 2014 some of our colleagues from Russia are banned to visit their experimental collaborations in the US. Colleagues from the US who have planned to attend international conferences in Russia were discouraged to travel. Even students who planned to attend a common CERN-Fermilab summer school were rejected:

“ … We have been informed by the U. S. Department of Energy that visits to Fermilab by Russian citizens from non-U.S. institutions are restricted. This means that until this ban is lifted, your participation in the Symposium is not allowed. At present, we do not have any further information on plans to suspend this directive in the near future. …”

With those travel restrictions, our scientific work is significantly hindered and even more the ban to travel is against any international scientific collaboration. We strongly believe that science and scientific exchange is important to reduce tensions between different political systems.

We have started and completed a signature campaign to protest against these unjustified and unscientific restrictions: after only 2 weeks more than 700 colleagues signed and supported this petition (link to petition).

On June 6 we have send out the petition to the directors of CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC.

Link to the press release (german)

We have also send the petition to the German government, Ministry of Science and Education.

On June 19 CERN officials meet US ambassador and bring up the issue with travel restrictions even to common CERN-Fermilab conferences. CERN positively recognized our petition