Turkey's repression of peaceful protests

Turkish police detained 65 people over protests which first started last month at a top university, authorities said on Friday, continuing a crackdown on the protesters despite growing international criticism.

Students and teachers at Istanbul’s Bogazici University have protested against President Tayyip Erdogan’s choice of university rector, an appointment they said was undemocratic.

Dozens of people detained with social media footage showing police dragging away students who had been protesting peacefully.

The EU Commission said the detention of students “exercising their legitimate right to freedom of assembly” was deeply worrying, and the COVID pandemic should not be used as a reason to silence critical voices.

Some 600 people have been detained since January 4 after protests spread in Istanbul and Ankara, authorities have said. Most have been released, despite repeated statements from officials that the protesters are terrorists.

Critics say Erdoğan’s monopoly on power and the undermining of democratic norms have intensified since a failed 2016 coup, after which the presidency reserved the right to directly handpick university rectors. Over the last five years, more than a dozen universities across the country have been shut down.

Almost two decades of AKP rule have placed Turkish institutions and society on a firmly religious and socially conservative path; the new wave of protests is unlikely to move the political needle in a deeply polarized country in which state repression of peaceful protest has become the norm.