Police attack protest in solidarity with Boğaziçi in Izmir

Police forces attacked masses in Izmir province who wanted to make a statement to show solidarity with the protesting students of Boğaziçi University. Many were detained in the crackdown.

Izmir Labor and Democracy Forces and Izmir University Solidarity platform wanted to make a statement in front of Türkan Saylan Cultural Center in the central Alsancak district to express their solidarity with the students of Boğaziçi University who have been protesting against the appointment of an AKP party supporter as rector.

Using pepper spray and rubber bullets, the police detained many activists.

Students at the Bogazici University in Istanbul began their protests nearly a month ago, saying the appointment of Melih Bulu as rector was undemocratic. Academics at Bogazici have also joined the protests against Bulu's appointment.

Turkish police on Monday detained 159 people over protests in Istanbul.

Protests for a month

Students at Boğaziçi University have been protesting against the new head of their university since early January. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had appointed Melih Bulu, who was a candidate for deputy for the AKP in 2015, on New Year's Day. Since the presidential system came into effect in July 2018, the AKP leader alone has been authorized to appoint rectors at state universities. Universities had already been deprived of the right to elect their own directors under the state of emergency following the 2016 coup attempt.

Students criticized, among other things, Bulu's closeness to the AKP. But they also condemned the appointment as undemocratic and against the university's tradition of electing its directors itself. The student body calls the new director a "trustee". They see the government's fear of a new Gezi uprising as the reason for the brutal violence against the protests.

Storm of bigoted agitation

The protests were most recently fueled by the arrest of two students over the weekend. Doğu Demirtaş and Selahattin Uğuzeş were arrested in connection with an art faculty exhibition on the university campus on the grounds that one of the images was blasphemous and denigrated Islam. The image, decorated with small LGBTI flags, shows the mosque of Mecca in Saudi Arabia with a montage of the mythical snake woman Şahmaran. The exhibition, organized by the art faculty of Boğaziçi University, was part of the protest camp on the campus grounds. Due to the installation of around 300 pictures, a storm of bigoted agitation was unleashed by the government, in which Islamist conservative media actively participated.