ISTANBUL (AP) – The president of Turkey has ordered the creation of two new departments at the country’s most prestigious university, which has been shaken by weeks of demonstrations protesting the appointment of a new rector with ties to the government.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision, published in the Official Gazette on Saturday, says that law and communication faculties will be launched at Bogazici University. Critics say the establishment of new departments would allow the president-appointed dean to recruit them from government supporters.
For more than a month, students and teachers led peaceful protests against the new president, Melih Bulu, who has ties to Erdogan’s ruling party. They are calling for Bulu’s resignation and for the university to be able to elect its own president.
In an open letter to Erdogan, Protestant students from Bogazici called the decision to open new departments of intimidation and “little tricks”.
“Your attempts to fill our university with your own political activists is a symptom of the political crisis you have fallen into,” said the letter.
The police arrested hundreds of protesters at the university and in solidarity protests elsewhere, some taken after their homes were beaten. Most were released later.
Senior government officials said terrorist groups are provoking the protests, and Erdogan called the students protests by terrorists. Press statements from the Istanbul governor’s office listed numbers of arrests with alleged links to left-wing militant groups and illegal Kurds.
Erdogan also highlighted Ayse Bugra, an emeritus professor 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 spying and trying to overthrow the government.
Erdogan accuses Kavala of being the “Turkish leg” of billionaire American philanthropist George Soros. On Friday, when an Istanbul court decided to keep Kavala in prison, Erdogan said “his wife is a woman who is among the provocateurs at the University of Bogazici”.
Her students issued a separate statement on Saturday, saying attacks on her must stop.
“We are deeply saddened by the personal and malicious attacks against her after the appointment of the rector of the University of Bogazici,” said her students over four decades, adding: “Ayşe Bugra is a source of inspiration for the thousands of students she has taught and mentored. … She is a treasure for the University of Bogazici and for Turkey. ”
Bugra said he found the president’s statement regrettable and was sorry for his country.
Officials in the United States, the United Nations and the European Union criticized the way Turkey handled the protests, as well as a series of homophobic comments made by Erdogan and other officials while denouncing the demonstrations.
In the same order, the president opened new colleges at several universities, closed others and appointed 11 deans elsewhere.
The students in their letter to Erdogan said they knew that its publication would likely result in criminal complaints, including for insulting the president, but they promised to continue to speak out and protest.