On the Lead-Up To #OccupyGeziPark—

#ODTU (Middle East Technical University), Ankara, Dec. 18, 2012

“Science Is NOT Merchandise. Imperialist War Monger Tayyip--Out of ODTU!”

In the face of the blatant and rampant totalitarianism of Turkish government and the effective policing of all public space, democratic progressive students in the country had started mobilizing in the months leading up to #OCCUPYGeziPark. The student protests that took place on December 18, 2012 on the Middle East Technical University (METU or ODTU) became the then climax of the unaccountable and disproportionate use of power by the current Turkish administration.

The Middle East Technical University in Ankara, or ODTU, historically one of the most progressive campuses in the country and a pioneer in scientific research, was scheduled to host the live broadcast of the launching of a Turkish satellite from China. The event was to take place at the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Institute, or TUBITAK office located on the campus, where the project for the satellite has been conducted. The institute also happens to have been the focus of a wide-spread controversy only 3 years ago when the government intervened in the publication of a special issue of the institute’s periodical journal focusing on Darwin’s 200^th birthday. The publication of the issue was effectively censored on grounds of the government’s disapproval of the Theory of Evolution (!), followed by the dismissal of an entire cohort of scientists working at the institute at the time.

Head of religious affairs, Mehmet Görmez:

“Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge universities all house a temple on campus. We shall build a mosque on each campus in Turkey. No campus will be left behind” (!)

The memories of the government’s virtual liquidation of TUBITAK was fresh in the minds of students in ODTU when they gathered on Dec. 18 to protest the arrival of the PM on campus. The students also held an active agenda against the government’s more recent attack on academic freedoms with the controversial new draft of Higher Education Law, and the government’s promise at the beginning of the Fall 2012 semester to construct a mosque on every campus, majority of which notoriously lack a descent research library!

 To bring public attention to the stark inconsistency between the government’s systematic attack on the autonomy of scientific inquiry, on the one hand, and a photo-opportunity provided by the launch of the satellite which the prime minister did not want to miss, on the other, some 500 students gathered on the ODTU campus on Dec. 18, and began to march peacefully, by chanting slogans in support of academic freedom, towards the TUBITAK office where the heads of state had met for the event. The marching group was stopped by 3600 police officers backed by military tanks, the so-called “Vehicles to Intervene on Social Events” (the infamous TOMAs!). Without any forewarning, the police then started to throw pepper gas cartridges against the students as well as spray them with pressured water. The intensity of the gas caused dozens of students to get sick, some to be hospitalized, 6 of whom incurred very severe injuries. One student, Barış Barışık, shot at point-blank range by a pepper gas cartridge, incurred a severe head trauma and lost consciousness.

The Turkish government,  as is their wont, complimented the use of coercive force by a judicial attack on students on Friday, Dec. 21. Through an early morning raid into the houses of the protesting students’ families, the chief prosecutor had 12 students arrested under the so-called Fight Against Terror Law, or TEM!