The protests sparked by the appointment of Melih Bulu to Boğaziçi University Rectorate on January 1 continue. The protests started with a call from Boğaziçi University students and  mobilized first hundreds of university students across Istanbul, then spread across the country. Police had detained some students following the first protest involving more than 3000 students, yet despite the arrests, the students’ resistance continued. 

After the first days of the protest, Boğaziçi Solidarity published a statement, introducing a proposal on the trajectory of the resistance. The Boğaziçi students called everyone to join and wrote “Every student must resist the appointed trustee at their own university”.

Here is the full text of the statement: 

“As the Boğaziçi University students, we thank everyone who supported the Boğaziçi resistance and helped amplify our voices! We know that Boğaziçi University is not the only university with an appointed trustee. Every student at every university should resist the appointed trustees. Boğaziçi students invite everyone to start their own resistance at their universities by uniting their community. These resistances should grow en masse, in order to raise our demands for the right to protect our free and democratic spaces. The university communities should show their will for autonomy, be persistent in their struggle for the election of rectors and rise up. Boğaziçi’s resistance will continue to wage the struggle, shoulder to shoulder at our campuses and at the city squares. We will make sure the trustees leave our campuses and together we will change the antidemocratic practices by joining each other at the city squares. We now spread our call #RectorateElectionsNow. We repeat once more: There is no salvation on your own; it’s either all of us or none of us!”