Students of Turkey's Boğaziçi University protest the appointed rector at graduation ceremony
Earlier in the week, students of Turkey’s Boğaziçi University held a protest during their graduation ceremony by turning their backs to the ‘appointed rector’ Mehmed Özkan.
As the rector Professor Özkan came up to the platform to deliver a speech, students turned their back and began clapping loudly.
Rector elections in Turkey were lifted last year with the order of an emergency decree created and passed by the Council of Ministers under the leadership of President Erdoğan. Though candidate rectors were previously selected among the academics elected by faculty members and the students, the new regulation allows for the selection to be done only by the members of the higher education board.
The decision of the president and his council of ministers was protested in a number of campuses, including the campus of Boğaziçi University, where students and academics were violently attacked by the police for holding a demonstration.
During the recent ceremony, graduating students of Boğaziçi University also held a banner to express support for jailed educators Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça, who have been on a hunger strike for over 100 days to demand their jobs back and who have also been detained for more than a month.