Rector Parlak Clubs Down Criticism
Approximately 500 people including students, union representatives and academics had staged a protest against the privatization of the University refectory after which the police attacked the group to prevent its entry into the building using pepper gas and truncheons.
A number of students were wounded and 7 others were detained in the incident.
A press conference held by those who attended Wednesday's protest and were subject to police intervention condemned the university administration for encouraging police violence and accused the security forces for using "disproportional force".
Criminal complaint against police and IU admin
On Thursday the Health and Social Service Workers Unions (SES) Istanbul Aksaray Branch together with Scientific Workers Union (Egitim-Sen) Universities Branch filed a criminal complaint against the private security firm that mistreated the protestors and the university rector's office.
The criminal complaint also included reference to IU rector Mesut Parlak's privatization tender and allowing police entry into the university.
Mubeccel Karabat, Egitim-Sen's executive board member and lecturer at the IU Foreign Languages Turkish Unit told Bianet that preventing union executives from carrying out their union work was a violation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions as well as Turkey's own Unions Law.
Investigations and clubs against democratic requests
IU Faculty of Law 3rd grade student Hulya Bayindir who was wounded during the police intervention at IU this week reacted to the violence they were subjected to by saying "We staged a boycott, a referendum and a signature campaign. The rector's office is replying very harshly to these requests. Many of our friends who attended the activities against the privatization of the refectory are now subject to investigation".
Student Isın Mordeniz from the say faculty added, "This is directly a problem that interests us, students of the university. We get investigated, we are brought face to face with police violence but whatever happens, we will continue this struggle together".
Mordeniz said those workers that would suffer from the privatization of the refectory were also warned and threatened.
"Why are we against privatization?"
Egitim-Sen's Karabat argued that the university's claim via its internet site that the cost of producing food at the refectory was in the whereabouts of 6 million and that this was too expensive for the university could not be correct.
"If s state university is producing food for 6 million without seeking or making profit, how can a private company produce this for less?" she asked. "We know from other examples at universities that the quality will constantly drop and the prices will go up".
Karabat also noted that privatization meant unemployment for current workers at the refectory and noted "previously, they privatized security too. If we do not challenge this, eventually they will privatize the whole of the university from canteens to office services and summer schools".
Gurer: University admin listening to capital
IU Faculty of Law graduate class student Onur Gurer summarized to Bianet what they were doing as the platform against privatization at the university:
"On April 19-20, we held a referendum throughout the university which revealed that 90 percent of the students and lecturers were against the privatization of the refectory.
"During the boycott of the refectory we staged between April 26 and May 3 only 2 thousand people visited the refectory which, previously, served 11,000 people.
"In an additional signature campaign we collected over 5,000 signatures. But the university administration is listening to the voice of capital rather than our voice".
"We don't want a merchant rector!"
SES Aksaray Branch, Tez Koop-Is, Egitim-Sen Universities Branch, IU students and a large number of academics who make up the IU Platform Against Privatization held a meeting at Istanbul's Beyazit Square on Thursday under the slogan "We condemn the privatizing rector and the police attacks". A press statement was read at the meeting.
The statement said privatization meant unemployment, de-unionization and a drop in quality, adding "we do not want the largest state university in our country being administered by people with merchant mentalities. We do not want a merchant rector".
The statement recalled that when Mesut Parlak was elected as rector for the IU he had said "I will end politics in this school" and that the first thing he did after taking office was to propose to charge for summer schools only to have to withdraw the suggestions in face of reaction. (AGS/TK/II/YE)