The Bogazici Resistance

While I was documenting the protests inside and outside of the campus, I was detained and condemned to house arrest, my camera being confiscated. Having suffered from not being able to document the resistance due to the arrest, I broke the cuff finally and continued from where I had left.
 

Through his decree on January 1st 2021, President Erdoğan appointed a new rector to Boğaziçi University without any election. Boğaziçi students gathered to protest this undemocratic decision. The appointment of a new rector to the university was crucial, because Boğaziçi, regardless of any ongoing politics in Turkey, has always been a free space where people with different ideologies find their place and express themselves. As Erdoğan’s move meant a substantial threat against an autonomous, democratic and free academy, many students from different backgrounds participated in the protests; LGBTIQ+, conservatives, seculars, feminists, and students from other universities. 

Along with the students demonstrating, the academicians started to turn their back to the rectorate every day on the campus, and many others from all over the world give their support by signature and public declaration. The appointed rector Melih Bulu was a candidate from Erdoğan’s party and his Ph.D. thesis was proven to contain enormous plagiarism. The protests sufficed to depose Bulu from the position and there was held an election amongst the university components for a democratically elected rector. However, against the elected rector, Erdoğan appointed Naci İnci as the new rector, who is recognized as being more hostile towards the ongoing student movements. 

Hundreds of students are investigated or violently detained, dozens are put under house arrest and 13 students have been imprisoned related to these protests in 2021. 

The students and academicians continue to resist against Naci İnci’s rectorate and Erdoğan’s dictatorship every day. Their demand is an autonomous, democratic and free university.