ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkey’s president has ordered the establishment of two new departments at the country’s most prestigious university, which has been shaken by weeks of protests to protest the appointment of a new rector with government ties.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision, published Saturday in the Official Gazette, says law and communications faculties will be put in place at Bogazici University. Critics say the establishment of new departments would allow the presidential-appointed rector to endow them with government loyalists.
For more than a month, students and teachers have led mostly peaceful protests against the new rector, Melih Bulu, who has ties to Erdogan’s ruling party. They demand Bulu’s resignation and that the university be allowed to elect its own president.
In an open letter to Erdogan, Bogazici’s students protested the decision to open new departments as intimidation and “little tricks.”
“Your attempts to package our university with your own political activists is a symptom of the political crisis you have fallen into,” the letter said.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck and protesting at other places. Most were released later.
Senior government officials have said terrorist groups are provoking protests and Erdogan has called students protesting terrorists. Press statements from the Istanbul governor’s office have listed the arrest numbers with alleged links to banned leftist and Kurdish militant groups.
Erdogan also noted Ayse Bugra, a professor emeritus at the university. Bugra is married to Turkish philanthropist and civil society leader Osman Kavala, who has been in prison for more than three years on charges of espionage and attempting to overthrow the government.
Erdogan accuses Kavala of being the “Turkish leg” of American billionaire philanthropist George Soros. On Friday, while an Istanbul court ruled keeping Kavala in jail, Erdogan said “his wife is a woman who is among the provocateurs at Bogazici University.”
Her students issued a separate statement on Saturday, saying the attacks on her should cease.
“We are deeply saddened by the personal and malicious attacks on her after the appointment of the rector of Bogazici University,” her students said for four decades and added: “Ayşe Bugra is a source of inspiration for the thousands of students who he has taught and mentored … It is a treasure for both Bogazici University and Turkey “.
Bugra said he found the president’s statement unfortunate and saddened by his country.
Officials from the United States, the United Nations and the European Union have criticized Turkey’s handling of the protests, as well as a series of homophobic comments made by Erdogan and other officials while denouncing the protests.
By the same order, the president opened new faculties at several universities, closed some others, and appointed 11 rectors elsewhere.
Students in his letter to Erdogan said they knew his publication would likely lead to criminal charges, including for insulting the president, but vowed to continue protesting and protesting.