'Abdüssamed K.' on Turkey's Parliamentary agenda

"We don't want molester, rapist academics at universities"

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) İstanbul MP Oya Ersoy has brought "Abdüssamed K." to Turkey's Parliamentary agenda.

After bianet reported on January 15 that Abdüssamed Köse, who had been arrested for "online solicitation of a minor" in Texas in 2015, was the Head of Marmara University's Psychology Department, the university, on the same day, announced that the academic resigned from office.

CLICK - Marmara University's Head of Psychology Department resigns

Addressing a Parliamentary question to Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk within this context, HDP's Ersoy has questioned how the man could become the Head of the Psychology Department.

In her Parliamentary question, the MP has underlined that even admitting a person arrested for such an office into a university is unacceptable, let alone appointing him the head of a department.

Ersoy has demanded that Köse be urgently stripped of his academic titles and the necessary action be taken against him.

The MP has said in her Parliamentary question, "I would like to ask Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk especially the following question: Has an administrative investigation be launched against the persons who enabled Köse, who had been given a sentence for sexual abuse in the US, to work as a head of department at Marmara University?"

Ersoy has also asked the Minister "through whom an official given a sentence for sexual abuse became the head of department at the oldest university of the country." Other questions of the MP are as follows:

"Have you, as the Minister of National Education, given any instructions to launch an administrative investigation against the person or persons who enabled a person who had been given a sentence for sexual abuse in the US to work as a head of department at Marmara University?

"Before appointing Köse to the related position at the university, was the university where he worked in the US contacted for references?

"Have you given any instructions to prevent Köse from working as an academic in Turkey or taken any initiatives to strip him of his academic title?"

What happened?

As reported by Evrim Kepenek from bianet on January 15, arrested for "online solicitation of a minor" in Texas in 2015, Abdüssamed K. came back to Turkey upon the suspension of his physician-in-training permit and became the Head of Psychology Department at Marmara University Faculty of Arts and Sciences in İstanbul. Marmara University, on the same day, announced that K. resigned from office. (EMK/SD)