The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into the Education and Science Workers’ Union (Eğitim Sen) for allegedly “publicly inciting the commission of a crime” following the union’s call for an academic boycott, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.
The investigation was prompted after the union supported a university student-led boycott and announced a “one-day service suspension” in protest of the detention of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
After İmamoğlu’s detention on March 19, university students in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir called for a boycott of classes and exams. Eğitim Sen, a union made up of academics, expressed its support for the students’ boycott and for standing by the students in their fight for a democratic Turkey and free, autonomous universities.
The Eğitim Sen Central Executive Board issued a statement announcing that on March 25, all higher education staff would observe a one-day service suspension.
“We support the just struggle of university students. Eğitim Sen members, as academic staff, will not be working on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, with the demand for ‘A University for the Benefit of Humanity, Society and Nature!’ University students have risen up against the increasingly deepening undemocratic practices, the suppression of freedom of expression and attacks on freedom of thought and the freedom to organize. We will never leave students alone in their struggle for a democratic Turkey and free, autonomous universities!”
Since the detention and subsequent arrest of İmamoğlu, there has been a nationwide call for an academic boycott. In Ankara students from Middle Eastern Technical University (ODTÜ) and Hacettepe, Ankara, Bilkent, Başkent and Yıldırım Beyazıt universities called for a class boycott.
In Istanbul, similar calls were made by student groups at İstanbul, Boğaziçi, Yıldız Teknik, İstanbul Teknik, Bahçeşehir, Bilgi, Galatasaray, Marmara, Yeditepe, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts, Özyeğin and Kadir Has universities.
In İzmir, student groups at Dokuz Eylül University and Ege University also joined the boycott.
A student from METU spoke to BBC Turkish service, saying that police checkpoints were set up at the campus entrances and exits.