The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Boğaziçi University in Istanbul: Police arrest more than 200 people during protests

2021-02-02T23:58:35.429Z


Students in Istanbul demonstrate against a university director appointed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The protests lead to clashes with the police.


Icon: enlarge

Police operation in Istanbul: Again, numerous people are arrested

Photo: BULENT KILIC / AFP

The Turkish police again arrested numerous people during protests by students.

In Istanbul, around a thousand students gathered in the Asian district of Kadiköy on Tuesday despite a ban.

They demonstrated against the appointment of a new director at the renowned Boğaziçi University.

Security forces used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse the crowd.

The police blocked a place at the ferry terminal, as a dpa reporter reported.

Some protesters chanted: "We do not want a receiver director." The authorities had given the corona pandemic as the reason for the ban on gatherings.

The Boğaziçi Solidarity, an association of students, announced that 228 people had been arrested.

Authorities initially did not confirm the number.

In the Turkish capital Ankara, there were also clashes with security forces at a solidarity rally, as the state news agency Anadolu reported.

According to Anadolu, 70 people were arrested there.

In the evening, residents in several districts of Istanbul beat pots and pans and whistled - they showed their solidarity with the demonstrators.

The students of Boğaziçi University have been protesting against the new director Melih Bulu appointed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since the beginning of January.

Since the presidential system came into force in July 2018, the president has the sole right to appoint rectors at state universities.

Among other things, the students criticize Bulu's proximity to the Islamic conservative ruling party AKP.

But they also condemned the appointment as undemocratic and against the university's tradition of electing its directors itself.

159 arrests on Monday

On Monday, 159 people were arrested during protests at Istanbul's Boğaziçi University.

According to the lawyer Gökhan Soysal, who represents some of the arrested, most of them have been released.

Two of his clients were hit by police batons and treated in hospital, he told the dpa.

Academics stood with their backs to the directorate on Tuesday lunchtime in protest on the campus of Boğaziçi University and held up signs that read 159, as seen on videos.

The protests were recently fueled by arrest warrants against two students at the weekend.

They were arrested in connection with an exhibition on the university campus: A controversial picture about the Muslim shrine Kaaba in Saudi Arabia was also shown there.

Among other things, LGBTQ flags adorn the edge of the picture.

LGBTQ

stands for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans and queer people - and the final symbol as a placeholder for other identities.

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu made another disparaging statement on LGBTQ * on Tuesday.

Twitter then marked the statement like a similar tweet on Saturday with a warning message.

According to Anadolu, Soylu said on Tuesday evening that terrorists were among those arrested.

They belonged to the Marxist-Leninist underground organization DHKP-C.

President Erdogan had already described the demonstrators as terrorists in January.

Icon: The mirror

ptz / dpa / AFP

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-02-02

You may like

News/Politics 2024-03-17T15:56:17.260Z
News/Politics 2024-03-25T15:34:20.146Z
News/Politics 2024-01-29T10:38:20.856Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.