‘Democratic right to protest exercised at Boğaziçi,’ says AKP Spokesperson

* Photo: Mustafa Murat Kaynak / AA

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Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Spokesperson Ömer Çelik addressed the reporters during the AKP Central Executive Committee meeting in the capital city of Ankara yesterday (February 9).

Çelik also talked about the ongoing protests against the appointment of Prof. Melih Bulu as a new rector to Boğaziçi University by ruling AKP Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on January 2.

Noting that the democratic right to protest was exercised during the Boğaziçi University protests, Çelik argued that what happened afterwards did not fall within the scope of the concept of democratic protest.

"Boğaziçi University is the apple of our eye," said Çelik, adding that it is now time to "ensure that education resumes properly."

'We don't accept the statements of countries'

"We are following the statements of various countries quite closely," Çelik said, adding that "these statements contain some unacceptable attitudes and sentences regarding the sovereignty right of Turkey."

"We would like to once again indicate that we accept none of these statements," AKP Spokesperson Ömer Çelik said.

Noting that "the democratic right to protest, even the right to civil disobedience, was used during Boğaziçi University protests", he aded:

"After some time, the protests came to a point that went beyond the democratic right to protest and civil disobedience and took the form of physical prevention, surrounding the rector's office and preventing the university administration from working; when protests came to such a point, the intervention of security forces into this would naturally be the case."

'The same method used in Boğaziçi'

Referring to the process of appointing a rector to Boğaziçi University, AKP's Çelik said that "a new rector was appointed to the university in the same method used to appoint rectors to other universities."

According to Çelik, it is "not right to develop an argument that claims that this appointment is legal, but not legitimate."

"Everyone used their democratic right to protest. The attitudes of prevention, occupying certain parts of the campus, preventing the rector from going out and calling him to account after this do not fall within the scope of the concept of democratic protest," reiterated Ömer Çelik.

"Boğaziçi University is the apple of our eye, it is one of the biggest gains of Turkey. Therefore, after this, it needs to be our most important sensitivity to focus on the proper functioning of the education life there," he said. (EKN/SD)