Campus security evacuate Boğaziçi students from club rooms using brute force

Turkey’s prestigious Boğaziçi University’s campus security on Aug. 18 evacuated students from their club rooms using brute force while riot police surrounded the university. The administration plans to use them as dorm rooms over the accommodation crisis in the university.

Friday August 18 2023 10:50 pm

Duvar English

Boğaziçi University rectorate on Aug. 18 sent campus security and undercover police to student club rooms to evacuate them and open space for new dorm rooms forcibly.

Security personnel battered students who were protesting against the decision that impacted numerous clubs engaged in cultural, scientific, and sports activities for decades. Riot police also surrounded the campus to intervene with the students.

Kulüp odalarımızı savunan arkadaşlarımız darp ediliyor! Kayyumun talimatıyla içeride sivil polis ve özel güvenlik, dışarıda çevik kuvvet bekliyor. Herkesi desteğe bekliyoruz! pic.twitter.com/p4TOqMhkej
— Boğaziçi Direnişi (@budirenisi) August 18, 2023

The university rectorate will transform approximately 20 student club rooms into dormitory rooms.

Following the closure of many dormitories on campus due to their lack of earthquake resistance, approximately 1,200 students have been left without placement to dorms before the start of the new academic year in September. The students also stated that there were earthquake victims and student with poor socio-economic background among them.

However, the university administration declined offers of assistance from various organizations, including the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. The rectorate asserted that the impact of this accommodation crisis on students would diminish in the future due to an “expansion of capacity within the existing dormitories.”

Yurtlarımız hakkında açıklamamız! pic.twitter.com/1wWspj3DAw
— Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Medya Merkezi (@MedyaBogazici) July 26, 2023

As one solution, the rectorate will use the student club rooms as 15-person wards although the accommodation of more than six students in the same room is against the regulations.

Since the appointment of a rector close to the government at Boğaziçi University in 2021, an active student movement has started at the school against the government’s attacks on academic freedoms.

Within months, the university administration attacked students and academics in a very hostile manner. Campus security and police used violence and detained hundreds of students inside the university.

More than 40 student clubs, where students actively socialize, also bore the brunt of these attacks. A month after the appointment of the new rector, the LGBTI+ Studies Club was shut down by the government with false accusations. Subsequently, the activities of many student clubs were prohibited, and some were temporarily suspended.