Attack on March 8 Event at Bilgi University

Click to read the article in Turkish

Women students, who organized a March 8 Festival in Santral Campus of Bilgi University, faced an attack by a group of men.

According to the information Ezgi Gül, who was among the women students, shared with bianet, a group of men covering their faces with black clothes attacked the women by shouting Allah-u Akbar. One of the man was carrying a knife, a woman students wounded in the eyebrow has been taken into a hospital.

"They were in black"

Bilgi Üniversitesi Santralistanbul Kampüsün'de kadınlara yapılan tekbirli bıçaklı saldırının görüntüleri paylaşıldı#8MartDünyaKadınlarGünü pic.twitter.com/5rKYdUmbC1

— Hergele Postası (@HergelePostasi) 8 Mart 2017

Of the attacked students, Ezgi Gül explained Bilgi Kadın, one of the student clubs at Bilgi University, organized permitted March 8 Festival on the grass in the campus.

“The women were sharing the food they cooked, dancing and talking about March 8 at a table.

“Out of nowhere, an organized group surrounded us in twos and threes and we couldn’t realize there were 20 until 20 meters were left between us.

“They were in black, shut their mouth with clothes, shouted Allah-u Akbar and attacked us with fists and a knife shouting ‘You are whores’, ‘You are infidel’.

“We intervened in and our friends from other student clubs backed us. Private security officials held us.

“One of our friends named İ.E. was hurt in the eyebrow and taken into a hospital. They hit head of another friend of ours named M.S. on the pavement. They attempted to lynch, she is in well condition. The private security officials dispersed the attackers towards different parts of the campus. The security chief said the attackers were kept in the school and would be delivered to riot squad officers that came to the door, yet, there is no change at the moment”.

Questions to the university president

Ezgi Gül also spoke about their questions about the university president who came down to the garden:

“The university president had written a mail a couple of weeks ago stating ‘they don’t mean to blacklist anyone, he feels bad about the situation that Turkey is in, and can’t take the sin if something bad happens to the students’.

“By stressing this, we asked how this attack could happen. There are two entrances of the school, one is for the students and the other for visitors. The students know the attackers are students, we wanted to have them identified.

“Threat messages were coming to Twitter accounts of Bilgi Gökkuşağı and Bilgi Kadın. We had submitted a petition to the university presidency concerning these threats. The university president said he was not informed of it. We told him he should resign if he can’t provide security.

“We haven’t accepted the offer to meet the university president via a representative because we have used our democratic rights, submitted petition, sent a representative so far but we’ve seen that no result can be gained through such measures”. (BK/TK)