Boğaziçi students narrate: ‘We carry out peaceful actions with songs, we have no intention of conflict’

Students from Boğaziçi University spoke about what happened at the school this week.

Most of the students who obtain Boğaziçi University from a city other than Istanbul often live in dormitories and houses in the Hisarüstü neighborhood, where the campus is located.

The school campus and the Hisarüstü neighborhood become your home.

This is why most students live with the feeling that their houses are being occupied by the police. In fact, some students are arrested when the police raid their homes.

Boğaziçi University student Gülru Turhan sums up this situation by saying: “We are all students from Boğaziçi who have not yet been detained”:

“I demand an end to police violence. There is no line on whether we are walking down the street, waiting for the bus, trying to go to the hospital with my family, on the school campus or where they can stop us. Don’t accept it.” .

Most of the students I spoke to about what happened at school lately are tired and sad for their friends who are still in detention; They say they still don’t alter their morale.

Professor at Boğaziçi University. Dr. The protests of the last month against the appointment of Melih Bulu as rector have recently taken on another dimension.

For several days, the students have been accused of “terrorists” by the politicians in power.

A student who does not want to be identified says: “I don’t care that people call me a terrorist because I want to live freely in this country with my rights. It is a centuries-old tradition to label this not-me a terrorist.”

Students are demanding both the resignation of Bulu and the appointment of rectors at all universities by choice.

His other demands are an end to police violence, the release of his detained and arrested friends.

The main reason for the protests over the appointment of the rector that has grown in recent days is the reaction of a work that appeared in the exhibition held on campus last week.

Two students were arrested in connection with the exhibition, they sent the message “From now on, you have it” to other students in their videos recorded during their detention.

So the students wanted to read a press release titled “From Now On, We Have It” on the campus gate on Monday.

However, the police stationed at the door did not allow the students to read a press release, nor did the students on campus leave.

The first response to the students occurred while walking in Etiler because they were not admitted to the school.

The arrests reflected on social networks led to the slogan ‘We will not look down’.

Eda * is one of the Boğaziçi University students who was arrested in Etiler on Monday.

Eda said: “We didn’t shout a slogan or read a press release. As seen in the broadcast video, I was actually arrested with our friends for not looking down.” says what happened to him.

Eda said that they were all handcuffed backwards and that this was a violation of rights, although they did not resist and shouted slogans: “They kept us on the bus for 4-5 hours with the handcuffs backwards. When they stopped us, there were policemen” . Threats They wanted to do the medical check-up in the vehicle without letting us enter the hospital, we refused ”.

He added: “There is no crying or crying in custody. Everyone is waiting to be released with songs, popular songs and to go back to school,” he added.

While many students, including Eda, were detained in Etiler, students who were inside the Boğaziçi University campus at the time were not allowed to leave.

Gülru Turhan, a third-year sociology student who was on campus at the time, said: “We were not allowed to participate in the protests outside, to go to the doctor or home, to go out to buy medicine. They imprisoned us as if we were a Open prison on our campus. We were told that was the decision of the trustee’s brain. ” He tells that they went to the interior rectory building.

The police intervened with students on campus that night in front of the rectory building.

Students describe the environment before the intervention as peaceful.

Saying: “We do not want to conflict with anyone, we do not want any of our friends to be arrested or detained,” Gülru Turhan describes the atmosphere that night as follows:

“We sat at the doors of the Rectorate building, we shouted slogans, we exercised our legal right to protest. We drank tea together, sang songs, danced. When the police arrived we sat down and crouched down, the student who wanted to attack the police did it don’t squat on the ground. “

However, when the curfew began at 9:00 p.m., the police went down to the Boğaziçi University campus and intervened with the students.

On the other hand, according to the circular of the Ministry of the Interior, those who violate the curfew in accordance with the General Hygiene Law No. 1593 are imposed an administrative fine of 3,150 TL, and the circular does not include the practice of detention .

In his statement to the press, Melih Bulu defended the intervention of the students saying: “They took an attitude that prevented the freedom of others. It was necessary to take measures.”

Management Information Systems third-year student Ece Çevik said: “We were calm, I knew the people on my right and on my left only by name. The police started pushing us, I was in the front. Suddenly, the police were in front of me. He started hitting me with his shield, I covered him with my arm, so fortunately nothing happened, “he said.

Claiming that his friends had told him ‘We have no problem with you’ before the intervention to the police, Çevik had a nervous breakdown after the intervention:

“We had a friend, Şeyma, I saw that the scarf was unbuttoned and they took it off like this. Then the police started running after us. When I looked back, I saw the police pushing someone down the stairs as I was running away. The students They did not attack even though the police attacked, all we did was remove the detainees and try to rescue them.

Ali Murat Kalkan, a second-year student of Turkish language and literature, says he received a severe blow to the stomach during the police intervention.

Claiming that he had friends who were injured and sprained while escaping, Kalkan stated that the police used plastic bullets from behind as they fled onto campus:

“Our action is nonviolent, we invite everyone to be calm,” we continued saying through the megaphone at the protest in front of the Rectorate. All the students were calm until the last moment. The task of a single group was to calm those who got angry. “

Kalkan said, “We are concerned about protecting our school and getting the proper education,” and he went to the Police Department today because of his speech on the social media platform called Clubhouse.

Following the arrest of 159 students during the events on Monday, a protest took place in Kadıköy on Tuesday, and the police intervened in this action.

A student from Boğaziçi participating in the action in Kadıköy, who does not want to be identified, claims that when they get off the ferry they smell gas:

“Suddenly the policemen who did not understand where they came from began to chase us. They were firing plastic bullets, a bullet that ricocheted off the ground hit my friend’s leg. At that moment, a person fell to the ground, they all started to pass over him in great panic.

Summarize the reason for participating in the action at Kadıköy as meeting with students from the other university:

“It does not matter what other organizations are doing, but the Bosphorus has the privilege, we elected our rector, you were everywhere as business trustees” is not. This is not a one-time event, the municipalities also appoint trustees, it may be legal Legitimate Given for years in Turkey, rights and freedoms are part of the fight.

“Because we cannot solve this problem by staying within the boundaries of the Boğaziçi campus. Years ago Ankara University could not solve it, then Istanbul University …”

Enes Karakaş, a third-year Turkish language and literature student, agrees.

“The Qayyim issue is not just a Bosphorus issue, we would have to participate in this fight, including the fact that BOGAZICI,” King said, thinks the general issue of Turkey’s democratization problem.

By emphasizing that minorities and student clubs that are otherwise at risk of being oppressed are in danger, academics should turn their lessons into an area of ​​action, according to Karakaş.

Students cite the decision to close the Boğaziçi University LGBTI + Studies Club this week as an example.

Despite being detained in Etiler on Monday, Karakaş also participated in the protest in Kadıköy on Tuesday after being released.

Karakaş said she was subjected to reverse handcuffs while she was detained in Etiler, “They tripped when they were detained, so I had a fine tissue wound. I have small bruises on my knees and hips.”

The first step that Boğaziçi students want to implement from now on is to establish an assembly that includes students, academics, employees and all components of the school.

Eda emphasizes that although there are students who want Melih Bulu to remain as rector at the school, no one is in conflict with each other.

According to Batur, who stated that the appointment of rectors is a common problem of all universities, there should be no distinction between Boğaziçi students and other students:

“It makes no sense to terrify this so much. To say that others are not from Boğaziçi … This administrator is not just something that happened in Boğaziçi. The friend who was sitting next to me when I was detained was a student from Istanbul University. it was an ITU student sitting behind me.

“Only the residents of Boğaziçi have the right to speak about it, as if they have the right to protest, as if the perception is that other students are there just to provoke us. All students have the right to say this.”

* Your name has been changed.