Amid a wave of intense student rallies, the politician slammed the LGBTQ+ movement as incompatible with the country’s values and compared protestors to “terrorists”.
Over the past week, more than 300 students were apprehended in Istanbul and Turkish capital Ankara following increasingly volatile and politically-charged altercations with authorities.
The protests came to fruition after Erdoğan named Turkish academic and politician Melih Bulu, who has strong ties to the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party), as a rector of Boğaziçi University.
Following the announcement, hundreds of protestors chanted “Melih Bulu is not our rector” and “we don’t want a plagiarist rector,” while staff called his appointment a violation of “academic