Turkish police confront women activists who protested Erdogan’s decision

Turkish police dispersed a women’s protest and detained a group of women who wanted to read a press release in protest against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s initiative to establish the first women’s university in the country.

The incident took place in the famous “Kogulu” park in the capital, Ankara, on Tuesday, where many activists gathered in the park under the slogan “We do not want a women’s university”, but they faced violence from the police who tore down the activists’ banners.

The “University Students’ Association” issued a statement through its account on social networking sites calling for the immediate release of the detainees, stating, “You will not be able to silence Bogazici or the women’s resistance.”

Referring to Erdogan’s appointment of Malih Polo, who is close to the ruling Justice and Development Party, as president of the Bogazici University in Istanbul, the statement said, “We do not want a guardian of the university and we do not want a women’s university.”

The association later announced the release of all the detained women.

Several women’s organizations began a campaign on social media on Tuesday, after Erdogan’s project for the first women’s university officially found its place in the “Annual Presidential Program for 2021”.

Erdogan put forward the women’s universities project for the first time during his visit to Japan to attend the G20 summit in 2019. In a speech in Osaka at the time, he said that having 80 women’s universities in Japan was “a very important thing”, and that he could imagine accomplishing something similar in Turkey.

Although the idea was met with outrage, especially by women’s rights activists, Erdogan continued with the project.

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