“Attorneys On Their Way, Would You Like Me To Come Over?”

Sometimes you feel as if somebody is trying to hurt you and you feel bad. I felt exactly this way when I got the news yesterday night. Having been in Gezi Park resistance since Day 1, I wanted to write about this bad feeling, unfair treatment. I know it very well that what I have learned over the past month is more than what I had learnt before then. Throughout the process, we have been hurt, our friends have been killed, their murderers have been let go and we have been subject to thousands of gas bombs and plastic bullets. The news I got yesterday is literally the “last straw”. From now on, I will use my legal rights and disseminate everything I have seen from this government and I will pursue what’s fair and will keep whoever responsible of this accountable.

I am not going to talk about how we resisted and how much violence we have seen. I won’t talk about this boss or that capitalist. But don’t think the days I will talk about them are far. When the time is right, I will write about everything I have lived through during this process so that they are heard and seen.
Anyway! The message yesterday was from the President of Ozyegin University Erhan and he wrote that he was resigning from his post because he was “tired”. I read again and again because the tone was very strange and it then occurred to me that this had nothing to do with getting “tired”. I was his assistant for 6 semesters, dozens of times he replied back to my emails in the middle of the night. What tiredness! I know this man; he never gets tired in educational matters. People who know me well know, I criticized Erhan in several areas (actually many areas) regarding the university, sometimes even had arguments. This situation is completely different though and I am behind this honorable man until the end.

Our professor was forced to resign because he expressed his opinions and he reached out to students in need of help. This is completely my personal opinion and deduction but I am pretty sure.

One of the reasons that are on the news right now that led to his resignation appears to be him sending an attorney to help one of the students who was detained. Yes that’s right, my professor supported in every possible way a student who was detained for the first time in his life and who was scared, didn’t know what to do. That student who was under custody was me!

When I was detained, he asked me “attorneys are on their way, would you like me to come over, do you need any help?” When I was in that armored vehicle, waiting for many hours, nobody had ever given me the comfort that the attorney who came by the vehicle and talked to me did. I can never forget. When I was released at the police station, I spoke with him first that day, before speaking with my family. He advised me, with a fatherly attitude, that the events have transformed and that I should go back home. I cannot forget that day.

You were not able to arrest me with your laws and you think you will be able to take our professor from us with your lawlessness. We know you have power, you will eventually do it. But we are not afraid to stand in front of you, just know that. We do not have any seat that you can make us lose either!

When I got detained, I was pretty sure of my innocence and that I didn’t do anything wrong but if I stay silent against this unfair treatment, I will consider myself guilty. I want everybody to know that I will do everything I can to stand by him.

If he doesn’t go back to that school as a “President”, I am dropping out of you Ozyegin! Take your scholarship, university and your companies.

But don’t be on my diploma please!

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