A woman arrested by Turkish police in front of Bosphorus University in Istanbul on February 1, 2021. -
AFP
The Turkish authorities have chosen to be intransigent in the face of a protest on the campus of the Bosphorus University in Istanbul.
Monday evening, 159 students were arrested.
Their wrongs?
That of demanding the resignation of a rector appointed by the power and the release of other students previously arrested for having hung a painting decorated with a symbol associated with the LGBT community.
The arrest of the students sparked an uproar among opposition parties.
The hashtag "We're not going to look down," referring to a video of police officers ordering protesters to look down, was widely shared on social media.
Erdogan does not want an "LGBT youth"
The protest and the arrests that followed came hours after the Turkish president's scathing attack on the LGBT movement, accusing him of "vandalism" and declaring that the youth of his party did not join.
"We are going to lead into the future not an LGBT youth, but a youth worthy of the glorious history of this nation," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a speech in Ankara for the executives of his Islamo-conservative AKP party .
“You are not LGBT youth.
You are not one of those young people who commit acts of vandalism.
On the contrary, you are the ones who mend broken hearts, ”he added.
The head of state made these remarks two days after the arrest of four students accused of having hung in their university a painting representing a sacred site of Islam adorned with rainbow flags, a symbol associated with the LGBT community.
The students are accused of "inciting hatred".
Two of them have been placed under house arrest and two others are still in detention.
Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu also caused an uproar on Saturday by saying in a tweet that “four LGBT deranged people” had been arrested.
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