Six students of Mersin University are being tried with three years each for chanting the slogans "Police, get out! Universities are ours" and "Get out AKP! You cannot enter university campuses". Mersin Prosecutor's Office decided that universities do not actually belong to students and that the slogan "universities are ours" constitutes a crime. The event had taken place on October 17, 2011 when the Minister of Economy Zafer Caglayan came to give a talk at Mersin University. During the talk the protesting students were not given access to the auditorium and were detained immediately.
The only evidence against the students in the indictment are the statements of the ten police officers who detained the students at the time. The police officers claim that the students called them "murderers" and threw their backpacks to the officers which caused some scratches on the police officers' bodies. The students said it was ridiculous that rather than the police officers who didn't let them attend the Minister's talk they themselves are being tried.
The trial will take place on March 25th in Mersin.
To read more about this in Turkish please visit Birgun.
The only evidence against the students in the indictment are the statements of the ten police officers who detained the students at the time. The police officers claim that the students called them "murderers" and threw their backpacks to the officers which caused some scratches on the police officers' bodies. The students said it was ridiculous that rather than the police officers who didn't let them attend the Minister's talk they themselves are being tried.
The trial will take place on March 25th in Mersin.
To read more about this in Turkish please visit Birgun.
