23 Students in Police Custody at Istanbul University

Tensions occurred among students of the Istanbul University on Monday morning (2 January) when a right-wing group entered the Bezyazıt Campus in the old part of the city. 23 students were taken into police custody.

According to the accounts of students, two busses of the riot forces entered the yard of the Faculty of Law. The police took 23 alleged left-wing students into custody.

Cem Şimşek, editor at the news centre of Hayat TV, is among the people in custody. He came to the campus in order to sit an exam. He was taken into custody by the police when he took footage of the incident with his cell phone.

Şımşek's lawyer Semir Karataş told bianet on the same day, "Trouble was created when a group of nationalists came in the morning. The police took 23 students, most of whom Kurds, into custody. It was said that the police took the students into custody according to a list they had in hand. Cem Şimşek recorded the incident with his cell phone. I have not been able to reach him yet. I am going to the police [now]".

Students said that injured people were taken away by ambulances. They also recalled that the police closed the doors of the faculty during their intervention and did not allow any pictures to be taken.

Interrogation

At 6.00 pm on Monday evening, the interrogation of the students in custody was still being continued at the Istanbul Police Directorate.

bianet talked to graduate student Beste Bal of the Faculty of Political Sciences. She said that the majority of the people in custody were members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), others were members of the Youth Opposition, Labour Party (EMEP) and the Labour Movement Party (EHP).

Bal described the incident as follows, "The police came before anything happened. There were plainclothes police officers since the early morning anyways; their number was higher than usual. It was certain that something was going to happen. The police intervened in a very tough manner and the ones who were there just by chance were harmed as well".

According to Bal, tensions arouse upon banners some students wanted to post in the canteen related to the 35 civilians who died in the course of a military operation in Uludere (south-eastern Turkey). "The other group started to tear the banners down and later on a fight started", Bal said.

Third grade student Bircan Birol of the Faculty of Communications Journalism Department stated, "A group of five people came today. We do not know if they were students. A commotion emerged when they posted the banners. The police was in the corridor of the Faculty of law and took into custody everybody who crossed their way, including the ones who were recording the incident".

Members of the right-wing group were injured in the course of the incidents. (IC/VK)