PodcastBoğaziçi community marks 100th day of protests against Erdoğan's rector appointment
Boğaziçi University's community on April 13 marked their 100th day of protesting against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's appointment of a party member as rector to their school. The president's appointment was considered a major breach of academic independence, and the Boğaziçi community has been staging protests on and off campus since Erdoğan's move.
A crowd of Boğaziçi University academics and students gathered on the school's main campus on April 13 to mark the 100th day of their resistance against the president's appointment of Melih Bulu, a pro-government figure, as their rector.
"We don't accept! We won't give up!" the community once again said on the 100th day of their resistance despite a brutal crackdown on students by the government, with hundreds having been detained in the past months in protests against the rector appointment.
School security once again tried to block alumni from entering the campus on April 13, although the crowds eventually got past the barricade to join the protest.
Students also painted over a set of steps on the school's campus in rainbow colors, an issue that's caused great conflict between the Boğaziçi community and Ankara, with the latter exponentially increasing their homophobic rhetoric against the diverse body of students. President Erdoğan's ally Devlet Bahçeli went as far as to say that the queer community was terrorists.