Students at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University have led to protests against Turkish president Erdoğan’s appointment of a close ally to head the prestigious academic institution.

Boğaziçi faculty members stood on the main lawn of the south campus in a silent protest, turning their backs on the office of the rector Melih Bulu, whose appointment by Erdoğan they have since opposed. They protested that the trustee rectors destroy the autonomous structure of the universities.

Meanwhile, academics from other universities of Turkey support the ongoing protests. Middle East Technical University (METU) faculty members made a statement in front of the METU Physics Department and said:

“We agree with the justified objections of all Boğaziçi University components that defend basic, universal, autonomous, democratic university traditions and academic principles against the appointment of the rector to Boğaziçi University. We support them to the fullest. We are proud of the university students who uphold these traditions and principles.

The oppression and police violence against the students must come to an end, and everyone detained and arrested in this process must be released immediately. As METU academic staff, we believe that universities should be democratic institutions that have academic, administrative and financial autonomy and are accountable to society as a result of this autonomy. It is important for social welfare that universities are not exposed to any pressure from outside.

As METU faculty, we respectfully announce to the public that we follow with concern the developments in Boğaziçi University that damage the autonomous and democratic university principle, that the advocacy of this principle is a social responsibility and therefore we will follow this process."

In the meantime, Turkish authorities have launched an investigation against independent deputy Ahmet Şık citing his statements regarding the Boğaziçi protests. On the day the detained students were released, former Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Şık had made the following statement:

“Nobody should believe that they (the government) will be gone by elections. Because nobody can deal with a mafia organization with the law. Not with their law. In order to fight with a law that has universal legal norms, everyone must fulfill their civic duty, and this struggle must be supported. There is a very heavy burden here, and it's not just a weight that these young friends can bear alone. We all should give a hand so we can lift and throw that heavy stone. The name of that stone is the palace regime."