Police Blockade on Bogazici University During Presidential Visit
- Endangered Scholars Worldwide
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
On February 13, 2026, President of the Turkish Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, visited Boğaziçi University in Istanbul to attend the opening ceremony of two new student dorms. For the students and faculty of the public university, who have been engaged in ongoing resistance against governmental encroachment (which has lasted more than five years, making it one of the longest academic resistance movements in history), this meant the introduction of a series of “safety measures” by the police, which significantly disrupted their lives and academic activities.
A day before Erdoğan’s visit, the Boğaziçi University rectorate (a trustee appointment of Erdoğan and one of the main targets of the ongoing resistance) announced via email that the university’s South Campus, the location of the ceremony, would be closed for access to all individuals except for organizational staff for the ceremony and female students staying at the dorms on that campus. Classes for students and faculty, and work for administrative staff, were all moved online. Campus stores were also closed, and shuttle services between campuses were suspended.
The students staying at the dorms were notified that they had to evacuate the dorm between 8 am and 10 am on the day of the visit, in order to allow for “detailed checks by security personnel.” Students were awakened at 7.30 am and instructed to leave the building and the campus, and to leave their room doors and lockers unlocked to allow for searches by the officers from the Department of Presidential Protection, to be conducted with detectors and dogs.
Hours before Erdoğan was scheduled to visit, the areas surrounding the university’s South Campus in central Istanbul were filled with police officers, some uniformed and others in plainclothes, who had started roaming on barricaded sidewalks, carrying out frequent ID checks and bag and body searches. Students also reported difficulties with internet access in areas surrounding the campus, hindering their ability to connect to online classes, with intentional electricity cuts and signal jammers being the likely reason for the difficulties.
A group of students gathered at the nearby North Campus of the university for a protest and press statement, following the call of the Student Representative Council of Boğaziçi University, to demand an end to what they called a “blockade” of their university. Two student protestors were detained by the police upon exiting the campus. In their hearing on the next day, the students were released on probation and with bans against traveling abroad.
On February 19, 2026, the chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, Özgür Özel, visited the same Boğaziçi University campus, in solidarity with the students and faculty, who were on the 1,261st day of their weekly vigil in front of the rectorate building. Özel criticized Erdoğan’s visit and its disruptive impact on the university by stating that Erdoğan did not follow the rules of a “proper way to visit a university” which entail visiting “without paralyzing university life [and] treating students like criminals” but rather being “respectful of the school, its students, and faculty members.” Özel also denounced the multi-year effort of the government to take over Boğaziçi University, including the appointment of trustee rectors and the systematic effort to drive away academics who are critical of the government and replace them with others by overriding Boğaziçi’s own rules and criteria for hiring and promotions.
Under the tenure of trustee rectors, since 2021, Boğaziçi has turned into a site of regular violations of the academic freedom of faculty and students. Most recently, on February 7, 2026, student access to the South Campus was temporarily prohibited in order to forcefully evacuate rooms used by student clubs overnight. Items and furniture were moved out of the rooms by university personnel, and the locks on the doors were changed to prevent students from accessing the rooms. Police were present on campus to pacify student opposition, including officers from the riot police unit as well as water cannon and detention vehicles. Students had gathered near the student club rooms in protest, attempting to prevent their club rooms from being taken away. Students, professors, and alumni voiced a shared conviction that the administration is seeking to undermine the current form of on-campus student life, to which student clubs are central. Student clubs have played a leading role in organizing on-campus opposition to the rectorate in the last few years.
A recent report by the Association of University Professors in Turkey, featured on the media site Medyascope, documented at least 251 instances of rights violations at Turkish universities in 2025. A plurality of the violations consists of those of academic freedom, such as rights to expression, teaching, and research. Boğaziçi University appears as a prime example in the report, which also noted that 76.5% of all rights violations were perpetrated by university rectorates.
Endangered Scholars Worldwide (ESW) condemns the violations of the academic freedom of faculty and students at Boğaziçi University, caused by the securitization of the campus during President Erdoğan’s visit, which has significantly disrupted the lives of students as well as academic activities. ESW stands in solidarity with Boğaziçi University students and academics in their resistance against the governmental takeover of their institution, which has been ongoing for the last five years. We call on the international community to join our call.
