Never insulted Erdogan? You’re eligible to stay in a Turkish student dormitory
A surprise amendment to the regulation of dormitory services under the Youth and Sports Ministry was adopted and published in the Official Gazette on Friday.
Under the amendment, students who have been convicted for a prison term of more than six months — or for insulting the Turkish president — will be unable to stay in student dormitories.
The move was criticized by rights groups as politically motivated. Between 2014 and 2019, 128,872 investigations were launched into cases of insults against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and prosecutors launched 27,717 criminal cases about these alleged insults. Turkish courts sentenced 9,556 of those charged with insulting the president, including politicians, journalists and even children. A total of 903 minors between the ages of 12 and 17 appeared in court on this charge.
In 2018, a 14-year-old boy was prosecuted over an Instagram post that allegedly insulted the president. Although he was sentenced to five months in jail, it was later turned into an administrative fine. Several students from Bogazici University were recently charged with “insulting the president” during protests against the appointment of a ruling party loyalist, Melih Bulu, as the rector of the university, one of the most prestigious in the country. An open letter in which they addressed the president, reiterating their demands and seeking to enjoy their constitutional rights, was also subjected to criminal proceedings with charges of insulting Erdogan. Separately, Turkey’s main opposition Peoples’ Republican Party (CHP) faced an investigation after banners were put up in the northwestern province of Mudanya. On the banners, which were taken down within hours, the CHP asked about a $128 billion hole in the Turkish Central Bank’s foreign reserves.
For a couple of months, the CHP has been raising the issue of accountability as to where and how these reserves have been spent since 2019. Durmus Yilmaz, former head of the Turkish Central Bank, has also called for an investigation to determine how these huge and muchneeded reserves were spent.
The opposition claims that the reserves might have been spent to support the Turkish lira against foreign currencies, while Erdogan said that the money was used in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The chief public prosecutor will investigate the party officials — who will be charged with insulting the president — for being involved in the preparation and display of the banners on the billboards for a couple of hours.
“The name of the president does not appear anywhere on the posters. I’m wondering what they thought about when opening such an investigation,” Zeynep Gurcanli, a senior journalist, tweeted.
The decision triggered a nationwide social media protest, with thousands of people tweeting: “Where is the 128 billion dollars?”