what is happening at boğaziçi university, turkey: a thread #AsağıBakmayacağız

on january 1st, melih bulu (an active supporter of current government) was appointed by the president to become the rector of boğaziçi university, one of the most acclaimed schools in turkey, without any election or consent from the uni members.

on top of that, he was not a professor at boğaziçi beforehand and it was appearent that he was underqualified, such thing only happened once during 80’s coup and it is a serious violation of universities’ academic autonomy and democracy & it is unlike any other european unis.

it got proved that melih bulu did plagiarism in his thesis and articles and tried to justify it as just “copy-paste” which is obviously unacceptable and furtermore shows he is incapable of being boğaziçi university’s rector. everyone at school urged him to resign immediately.

everyday students and professors meet at the campus to peacefully protest against this anti-democratic appointment with open lectures, concerts, forums, art exhibitions etc. but with the government’s support melih bulu refuses to listen anybody from the university.

from the first days of protests, melih bulu let police into the campus to threaten the students and created an unsafe environment at their own school. police took many students into custody to make them give up however the protests got even bigger with other universities support.

then a few religious students reported an artwork from the protest exhibition to provoke public to take side against students by claiming that the anonymous artwork disrespected their believes by putting a religious scene together with lgbtq+ flags and placing it on the floor.

various political figures made terrible claims against lgbtq+ community and showed that turkey is not a safe place for most of us meanwhile melih bulu only further provoked it by calling lgbtq+ students “perverts”. 4 organizers of the exhibition got arrested with made-up charges.

as of today, more than a hundred police blockaded the campus so the students inside couldn’t go out and the others couldn’t get in. police scolded students walking on the street by saying “look down” and started taking them in custody for only this reason.

the students inside the campus demanded melih bulu’s resignation and started a peaceful sit-in but later police violently forced them to leave the campus. it is reported that almost 150 students are forcefully being taken to police stations.

we demand melih bulu’s resignation!
we demand a democratic election of the rector!
we demand police to leave our campuses!
we demand immediate release of our friends!
we demand free universities!
#AsağıBakmayacağız

if you want to keep up with the protests and get more information you can follow this account here: @resistBU