{"id":10782,"date":"2026-02-12T15:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/10782\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:14:08","slug":"turkeys-top-court-rules-university-president-violated-student-protesters-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/10782\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey’s top court rules university president violated student protester\u2019s rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a university president violated a student\u2019s right to protest by using a domestic violence protection law to obtain a restraining order against them during campus demonstrations, the T24 news website reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The court found that Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University President Naci \u0130nci improperly invoked Law No. 6284, legislation designed to protect victims of domestic violence and prevent violence against women, to silence a student protester. A lower court had granted \u0130nci\u2019s request for a protective order, citing \u201cpersistent stalking\u201d and ordering the student to refrain from threatening or insulting behavior for one month.<\/p>\n

In its decision the Constitutional Court said the lower court failed to adequately explain how \u0130nci qualified as a victim of stalking. The justices ruled that misusing the domestic violence law to restrict peaceful protest violated the student\u2019s constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

The decision represents a rare judicial rebuke of tactics used to suppress dissent at Turkish universities, where academic freedom has come under growing pressure in recent years.<\/p>\n

The case stems from yearslong protests at Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University that began in January 2021, when President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan appointed Melih Bulu as university president, bypassing the institution\u2019s democratic election process. Bulu, a political ally who had run as a candidate for Erdo\u011fan\u2019s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), became the first outsider appointed to lead the elite Istanbul university since a 1980 military coup.<\/p>\n

The appointment sparked immediate and sustained demonstrations by students and faculty who saw it as an assault on academic independence. For years, students and alumni continued protests, with many symbolically turning their backs to the president\u2019s office during demonstrations<\/p>\n

During the protests, Erdo\u011fan dismissed demonstrators as \u201cterrorists,\u201d asking, \u201cAre you students or terrorists who are trying to raid the office of the rector?\u201d He accused them of lacking respect for Turkish values and vowed his government would not allow mass government protests like those that swept Turkey in 2013.<\/p>\n

When the protests continued after \u0130nci replaced Bulu in August 2021, authorities responded with force. Police detained dozens of students, university gates were padlocked and both academics and alumni, including former elected university president Professor \u00dcst\u00fcn Erg\u00fcder, were barred from the campus. Faculty members also reported being blocked from teaching classes.<\/p>\n

Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i, founded in 1863 as Robert College, the first American college established outside the United States, has long been viewed with suspicion by Erdo\u011fan and his conservative base. In 2018 Erdo\u011fan publicly warned that \u201cthe secular, liberal learning environment of Bogazici might become a threat to students that would lead them to alienate themselves from the values of the nation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The crackdown at Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i is part of a broader assault on academic freedom in Turkey. Since a coup attempt in 2016, Erdo\u011fan\u2019s government has dismissed thousands of academics, shuttered universities and moved to assert greater control over institutions of higher education. The government\u2019s stated goal, as Erdo\u011fan has said, is to raise \u201cpious generations,\u201d a vision that clashes with Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i\u2019s longstanding tradition of a secular, liberal education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a university president violated a student\u2019s right to protest by using a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[422,423,8525,425,426,312,427,428,429,8526,431,131,132,155],"class_list":{"0":"post-10782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stockholm","8":"tag-ak-party","9":"tag-akp","10":"tag-bogazici-university","11":"tag-democracy","12":"tag-erdogan","13":"tag-human-rights","14":"tag-justice","15":"tag-law","16":"tag-oppression","17":"tag-president-naci-inci","18":"tag-rule-of-law","19":"tag-stockholm","20":"tag-sweden","21":"tag-turkey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}