Wladek Flakin // Erdogan Has Left-Wing University Students from Istanbul Arrested

19.4.18

Erdogan Has Left-Wing University Students from Istanbul Arrested: [leftvoice.org] Immediately, a witch-hunt against the activists began in social media, soon taken up by the mass media. The university rector defended the "free speech" of the Islamist students, while calling the anti-war activists "terrorists" – without any further explanation. This is typical in Erdogan’s Turkey: Any opposition to the government is characterized as "terrorist". The AKP is trying to change the university law to make it easier to expel students from the university and silence criticism.

On Thursday morning, six students were arrested by the police in their homes. By noon that day, students had gathered at Boğazi�i University to protest against the repression. Here, seven more people were detained by the police. Of the 13 arrested on Thursday, 7 were released the same day and 3 more on Friday. But a further activist was detained on Friday. So at the moment, four students remain in prison.

Most of the activists are from the Marksist Fikir Toplulukları (Community for Marxist Ideas, MFT) and the Sosyalist Emek�iler Partisi (Socialist Labourer’s Party, SEP), Trotskyist organizations with a long tradition at the Istanbul university.