Organised fascist attacks against communist students are intensified with the menaces pronounced by Turkish President Erdoğan.
ICP, 28 March 2018
Affiliated with the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), Communist Youth of Turkey (TKG) since February has been carrying out many rallies, press releases, theoretical discussions and other activities within the framework of its anti-imperialist campaign against NATO. However, it did not take long for fascist mobs and authorities to target the TKG members at universities in different cities of Turkey since the very beginning of the campaign. The last incidence happened at İstanbul University on March 13 as a result of the provocation of a fascist mob, leading to the capture of 22 TKG members. The Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) protested the attacks with its statement, "Hands off the TKG". Against the systematic attacks targeting TKP and TKG, KNE expressed its unreserved solidarity and put forward that the neighbouring peoples have a common enemy, which is the system of exploitation, poverty, unemployment, and imperialist wars.
Another provocation took place the following week at Boğaziçi University. On March 19, leftist students protested fascists at the campus who were distributing Turkish delight in support of the government's military operation in Syria. On the following days after the brawl, many students got arrested by the police who stormed student dormitories and houses and even violently captured students inside the university campus. Further stimulating the provocative discussions in the media, in the speeches he delivered at the weekend President Erdoğan threatened "communist terrorist" Boğaziçi University students with investigations for their ban from the university.
TKG issued a statement in response to Erdoğan's anti-communist phrases. Reminding the political activities that communists carried out against imperialist forces in the War of Independence and in the 1960s, TKG claimed that communists are the true patriots in Turkey. It was emphasised that criticising the Afrin operation cannot be identified with "terrorism", but that the government itself aims at terrorizing the society as it unlawfully labels citizens as "terrorists". "Anti-communism functions as an ideological guise for blatantly suppressing the struggle of working class," the statement concluded, which is why Erdoğan targeted the communist students.
Accordingly, the United Democratic Youth Organization (EDON) from Cyprus released a statement yesterday on the ongoing student arrestations. Criticising Turkey's aggressive foreign policy and her attempts for a role of "regional imperialist force", EDON expressed its solidarity with the TKG and the progressive youth in Turkey.