In a recent meeting, the Senate of Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg dealt with the alarming events at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Wording of the statement:

“The reports about the current events at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, with whom our university has had cooperative relations for years through the ERASMUS programme, fill us with dismay and concern. We read and hear about intimidation attempts, threatening criminal prosecution without justification and violent police actions on campus. In a climate of fear, free expression and critical voices of students and faculty are suppressed. Thus, academic freedom at our partner university is massively endangered or suspended. Free scientific activity is thus deprived of its indispensable basis. The current events represent a new high point in a series of repressive measures students and teachers have been exposed to at Turkish universities for years (see also the statement of the HRK of January 22, 2021). These have also led to the fact that the student and teacher exchange via the ERASMUS programme between Carl von Ossietzky University and Boğaziçi University has come to a standstill. We deeply regret this and call on the state authorities in Turkey to take all measures needed to restore and reinforce academic freedom at Boğaziçi University. Universities are places of free expression, criticism and exchange; only in this way is science possible.”