On February 13, Erdoğan visited Boğaziçi University (one of Turkey’s oldest universities) for the opening of a dormitory. Students protested his visit holding a banner that read “Get out, one-man rule, from our university.”
Students Sude Şener and Ayşe Cebecioğlu were taken into custody. Erdogan has a long history of attacking higher education. Erdoğan, himself is not a university graduate and was elected president with a forged diploma. And previously he removed the Theory of Evolution from the Bogazici curriculum, and then he fired professors he did not like. He appointed trustees (government-appointed rectors) to the university twice. The university is currently run by a trustee rector, Naci Görür. For the past two years students and faculty have protested the trustee every week in front of the rectorate building. These are just some of the reasons why students and faculty members protested Erdoğan’s visit to Boğaziçi and unfurled a banner saying “Get out, one-man rule, from our university,” which decides everything in the country.
Sude Şener and Ayşe Cebecioğlu were immediately detained and are at court in Çağlayan Courthouse today. We demand that this attack on Sude’s and Ayşe’s right to protest end and that they be released immediately.