![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/universities-should-not-defend-status-quo-pm-says-2010-11-28_l.jpg\" "\\"A")
Student groups protested a meeting Sunday between university rectors and the prime minister, who called for freedom in the country\u2019s schools and said he had not ordered charges to be filed against protesters at previous appearances.<\/p>\n
Eighteen university students were recently sentenced to 15 months in prison for protesting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan at Istanbul Technical University, in one of the more severe crackdowns on students protesting government officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no criminal complaint against [the students]. Unfortunately, it is all an initiative of the judiciary. I did not even have any information about the incidents. I learned about them afterwards from media reports,\u201d Erdo\u011fan said.<\/p>\n
A group of around 50 people calling themselves the Turkey Youth Union gathered Sunday in Istanbul\u2019s Be\u015fikta\u015f district near the Prime Ministry office at Dolmabah\u00e7e Palace to protest Erdo\u011fan and Yusuf Ziya \u00d6zcan, the head of the country\u2019s Higher Education Board, or Y\u00d6K, the private news site CNNT\u00fcrk reported.<\/p>\n
Students hung a banner on a nearby overpass that read, \u201cHey Tayyip, we too call the destroyer of the Republic, the destroyer of the Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police removed the banner and blocked the protesters from reaching the Prime Ministry office. The group dispersed without further incident.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the university rectors in his office at the palace, Erdo\u011fan said universities should focus on the country\u2019s chronic problems and not fall into the trap of defending the status quo.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurkey has many really important and urgent problems, from economics to democratization, education to culture. It is impossible for the government to solve all these issues on its own,\u201d Erdo\u011fan said, calling on universities to produce solutions.<\/p>\n
In his remarks, the prime minister also touched upon the issue of freedom in universities, noting that during different periods, Russian literature departments were closed due to the communism threat and Arabic literature departments were shuttered because of the threat of fundamentalist Islam.<\/p>\n
\u201cUniversities that should provide a ground and insurance for freedoms were remembered for years for bans, limitations, oppressions and, I say with sorrow, for inhuman practices like \u2018convincing rooms,\u2019\u201d Erdo\u011fan said, referring to the places in Istanbul University where female students wearing headscarves were in the past urged to remove their veils.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor dozens of years, beards, moustaches and clothes were unfortunately discussed instead of the problems of science, scientists and the quality of universities,\u201d the prime minister said.<\/p>\n
He added that protesting something should not include destructive or violent acts.<\/p>\n
Turkey has seen a number of student protests recently. One group of students from Y\u0131ld\u0131z Technical University was temporarily banned from entering the campus after tension erupted at the school over a banner expressing opposition to allowing the headscarf at universities. Previously, two students were arrested \u2013 and remain in jail after eight months \u2013 for bringing a banner in support of free education to a meeting Erdo\u011fan held with Roma people. The latest action by students was held in Eski\u015fehir, where protesters threw eggs at Ha\u015fim K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7, the head of the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n
Erdo\u011fan will meet Saturday with a second group of rectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISTANBUL – Daily News with wires A group of around 50 people calling themselves the Turkey Youth Union gathered Sunday in Istanbul\u2019s Be\u015fikta\u015f district near the Prime Ministry office at Dolmabah\u00e7e Palace to protest Erdo\u011fan and Yusuf Ziya \u00d6zcan, the head of the country\u2019s Higher Education Board. Student groups protested a meeting Sunday between university […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":27180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[845],"tags":[4591,4590,4592],"class_list":["post-27178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scitech","tag-higher-education-board","tag-yok","tag-yusuf-ziya-ozcan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}