Solidarity with Boğaziçi

The appointment of AKP member Melih Bulu as rector of Boğaziçi University by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is causing protests by students and teachers. The police use violence against the peaceful protesters, hundreds of students were arrested. The state president, his interior minister and the head of the coalition partner MHP, Devlet Bahçeli, label the protesters as terrorists.

This is not the first time that students and academics have been targeted by the president and the ruling coalition of AKP and MHP. Thousands of academics, including those in leading positions at universities, were dismissed with emergency decrees enacted after the coup attempt in 2016. Also worth mentioning are the repressions against academics who had positioned themselves against the Turkish state’s war against the Kurdish people with a call for peace in January 2016. Almost all the signatories were dismissed, dozens were arrested and given prison sentences.

We condemn the state’s attacks on students and academics. Our solidarity is with those who stand up for the independence of science. Science is solely committed to the truth.

Kurdish Academics Network