Students and staff at an Istanbul university have clashed with police in rare protests sparked by the politically charged appointment of a state-approved rector with links to Turkey’s conservative ruling party.
Melih Bulu – who stood as a Justice and Development party (AKP) parliamentary candidate in 2015 – was appointed rector of Boğaziçi University by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a presidential decree issued on 1 January and sworn into office on Tuesday.
The decision was met with outrage from the student body and faculty members, who interpreted Bulu’s appointment as an attempt at curtailing academic freedoms, pointing out that the new rector is the first to be chosen from outside the university community since the 1980 military coup.
Police in riot gear blockaded roads around the Istanbul campus in preparation for a third day of protests on Wednesday, outnumbering the few hundred students who showed up to chant “Melih, step down” and “AKP, take your hands off our university”.
The heavy police presence and arrests of at least 24 students detained in home raids also dampened Wednesday’s numbers. About 1,000 people took part in the demonstrations on Tuesday, during which clashes broke out as some students attempted to break police lines to enter the university grounds. Police used teargas, water cannons and rubber bullets to break up the protest.
“He is not our rector, he is not an academic, he was not chosen democratically,” said Ceren Karapinar, a linguistics student in her third year of study who marched with friends on Wednesday.
“I came to Boğaziçi from Bursa; it’s the best in the country and it’s an honour to be here. The university is known for its liberal atmosphere and open mindedness … this appointment destroys it.”
Boğaziçi University, named for the Bosphorus strait the campus overlooks, was founded in 1863 and known as Robert College until the 1970s. Often described as Turkey’s most prestigious university, it has a longstanding reputation for tolerance and intellectual independence, and was the only higher learning institution in the country to defy the then-secularist state ban on headscarves on university campuses in 1997.
Bulu, in an interview with Turkish television, said he would not bend to the pressure to resign because his appointment “met global standards”. Police were present to stop non-students from entering campus, he added, but “Boğaziçi students can protest wherever and however they want”.
The ruling party has also defended Bulu’s appointment as legal. “It is not a crime for a person to have a political view,” AKP spokesperson Ömer Celik told reporters on Tuesday following a party meeting chaired by Erdoğan.
The Boğaziçi University protests, while unexpected, are unlikely to move the political needle in a highly polarised country in which state repression of peaceful protest has become the norm.
Almost two decades of AKP rule have transformed Turkish institutions and society, but critics say Erdoğan’s monopoly on power and the undermining of democratic norms have escalated since the failed 2016 coup.
Over the last five years, thousands of academics, lawyers, journalists, civil servants and military members have been arrested or detained over alleged links to terrorism. Since 2016 Erdoğan has also reserved the right to directly handpick university rectors, previously appointed through elections, and more than a dozen universities across the country have been shut down.
“We came here on Monday for the first protest and had a little hope that we can change things democratically, explaining what we want, but today all the choppers are flying overhead, there are police everywhere. It’s not going to happen,” said graduate Ömer, who finished his degree in business administration last year.
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