At least 17 students protesting the appointment of a member of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party to head one of the nation’s top universities by presidential decree were arrested in dawn police sweeps Tuesday and subjected to physical violence and threats, lawyers say. Images of the raided homes showed doors ripped out and broken walls.

The students are being held at the anti-terror directorate of Istanbul’s Vatan police headquarters on charges of resisting arrest, violating laws governing the right to march and demonstrate and having links to terror groups. Rights groups describe the arrests as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's systematic campaign to intimidate dissenters, suffocate free expression and strip academia of its independence.

The Interior Ministry claimed that 15 of the students protesting the Jan. 1 appointment of Melih Bulu as rector of the prestigious Bogazici University were not students at all and that some were connected to an outlawed revolutionary left-wing group. The students are being accused of hurling rocks at police and calling them “killers” during violent clashes Monday with police. The new rector repeated some of the claims, saying, “The detained people are not students; they are members of certain organizations.” He called the demonstrations against his appointment “an unforeseen provocation.”

Ezgi Onalan, a lawyer representing the students, called the ministry’s assertions “farcical.”