Members of the European Parliament and international and local human rights groups called on Turkey to release two university students who have been behind bars for more than three months for participating in protests against the government-appointed rector of one of Turkey’s top public universities.

The calls come as the protests at Bogazici University, where students and academics have been fighting against the reach of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, mark their first anniversary. Since Jan. 3, 2021, the picturesque campus overlooking the Bosporus has been filled with security guards and iron barriers that have prevented access to the offices of the rector. Nearly a thousand students were detained and about a hundred lost their scholarships for participating in the protests. A dozen academics sympathetic to the student protests were removed from duty. 

“We have been observing with great concern the arbitrary repression of the state security forces against the students of Bogazici University in Istanbul … protesting against the arbitrary appointment of the rector by President Erdogan,” four European Parliament members said in a joint statement this week, ahead of Friday’s trial of 14 students facing six to 32 years' imprisonment.

Claiming that the students had simply been using their constitutional rights, the lawmakers added, “They have been paying a very high price for exercising their fundamental right to protest and demonstrate for some time now: the students are being clubbed down, terrorized, arrested, and, in some cases, tortured.”