Erdoğan and Turkey’s Universities… Lessons Under Censorship

Support for student protests at a university in Turkey has cost him the cancelation of his subject in a “political” punishment aimed at placing education under surveillance.

The Bosphore University in Boğazci is facing charges of carrying out a politically motivated punishment against a lecturer after he supported student protests, in what critics see as the latest example of a restriction on academic freedom in the country.

According to U.S. news agency The Media Line, Feyzi Erchin, a lawyer and part-time lecturer, canceled his subject at the end of May, which his supporters say was because of his outspoken support for students protesting against the government-appointed university president.

Erçhin said that Istanbul’s Boğazci University claimed to have canceled his course because he had been giving students overgrades, an accusation he said was blatantly false.

“The only reason may be that, as a lawyer and performing my public duties, I have responded to the legal aid needs of my students and helped them in the unfair accusations and prosecutions they have been subjected to,” he wrote.

Erçhin visited the students at the court after they were jailed following protests at the university last January against its president, Melih Bulu, who was appointed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Bulu, a member of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, was once a candidate in national elections, while students and many training staff members said his appointment was undemocratic and lacking transparency.

The student arrests drew criticism from the USA, and drew parallels with the 2013 Gezi Park anti-government protests, which were followed by a huge crackdown on civil society and the press.

More protests erupted this week, with students setting up tents to stay on campus overnight, but local reports said police forcibly removed them from the ground around midnight.

Political science professor Zeyneb Gambetti, who is a part-time lecturer at the same university after retiring in 2019, said Irchin’s suspension of teaching illustrates the extent to which the new university’s administration can reach out to.

She added : “This is a turning point in the fact that, so far, they have not addressed or interfered with the curriculum, they have not directly entered this into administrative decision-making procedures. “The administration is revealing its fangs now.”

Berk Esen, an assistant professor of political science at Sabancı University in Istanbul, said the government could not prosecute full-time faculty members the same way it dealt with Erchin; Because they’ll be harder to kick.

He added that the cancelation of the article taught by Erchin could serve as a warning to full-time teachers and part-time lecturers that they could be targeted, stressing that “this is a full-scale attack, a personal revenge by the Boğazci administration. The president’s office is after Erchin.”