Prayer room provocation at university: They targeted a female academic

Footage that emerged on social media yesterday showed a female academic at Kadir Has University being targeted by students who left their shoes in front of the door of a prayer room, despite the presence of a shoe rack inside. The university administration announced that it has launched an investigation into the footage.

CAMERA ANGLE

The incident, which took place at the Faculty of Law of Kadir Has University in Fatih, has sparked significant debate. In the footage reflected on social media, it was alleged that Zeliha Gizem Sayın, one of the academics at the Faculty of Law, entered the prayer room with her shoes on. However, Sayın, who appears in the footage, explains that the incident was different.

It was noted that the person filming Sayın walked outside the prayer room in their socks while talking about cleanliness before returning. The individuals also filmed the female academic's chest area to target her. The footage was blurred by pro-government media.

THEY THREATENED HER

In the footage in question, Sayın states that there are shoe racks in the prayer rooms, but that male students insist on leaving their shoes in front of her office door. The footage also shows Sayın being pushed. Sayın says the following:

“I wanted to talk; you threatened me in my office, said ‘I will not talk to you,’ and left. I asked if we could talk and what the problem was, and you left. So I came here. You cannot take your shoes off in front of my office door. You cannot leave your shoes in front of the door.”

MANY MOSQUES AROUND THE CAMPUS

The campus where the dispute took place is located in the Fatih district of Istanbul, an area with more than one mosque. Prayer room disputes at the university have occurred in previous years as well. According to reports in newspapers at the time, Kadir Has University stated in an announcement that the Haraççı Karamehmet Mosque is located 10 meters from the campus entrance gate. The relevant part of the university's statement is as follows:

“Our university is in the Cibali neighborhood of Istanbul's Fatih district. Due to its location, it is in one of the most central areas of the city. It is within walking distance of all religious venues where people of every faith can easily perform their worship.

In addition to the prayer room to be opened on our campus, we have long been providing all kinds of assistance to the Haraççı Karamehmet Mosque, which is located right next to our university campus, 10 meters from our entrance gate, so that our staff and students can easily perform their worship.”

THERE IS A SHOE RACK

The prayer room where the disputes took place was opened during the 2022-2023 academic year. In the footage shared by the groups demanding the opening of the prayer room, it can be seen that there are shoe racks inside. However, some students left their shoes in front of the academic's office.

THEY GATHERED IN FRONT OF THE CAMPUS

After the footage appeared on social media, the academic was lynched by reactionaries. Groups demanding her dismissal from the university gathered in front of Kadir Has University today at the call of TÜGVA. In the protest, which had low participation, slogans such as ‘Islamic Movement Cannot Be Stopped’ and ‘Rotten mentality, get out of the campus’ were chanted.

STUDENTS SUPPORT THEIR PROFESSOR

Kadir Has University students supported the academic against whom an investigation was launched. The students responded to the TÜGVA group with slogans of “Turkey is secular, it will remain secular.”

The students prepared a joint declaration, stating, “No ideology other than science can be a compass in universities.”

The joint text is as follows:

“These contents, which were published by taking them out of the university context after a certain period of time had passed since the incident occurred, constitute a threat to our academic, us students, and all members of Kadir Has University.

It is inevitable to say that this effort to create an artificial agenda is repeated at certain intervals. Furthermore, the Republic of Turkey is a secular state of law, and everyone living in our country has freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right also includes the freedom to change one's religion or belief, and the freedom to manifest one's religion or belief, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, through worship, teaching, practice, and observance.

In this state, the prayer room located within the school grounds is open for use in a way that respects all beliefs, as our targeted academic also stated. In this state, it is everyone's responsibility to respect the principles of communal living. For those who are uncomfortable with this communal use, there are 3 separate places of worship within 100 meters of our school.

However, we cannot support those who do not respect communal living spaces by not using the shoe rack inside the prayer room located within our school and by blowing this simple matter out of proportion without taking warnings into account. On the other hand, we would like to state that we will in no way accept our valuable academic, who tries to provide us with all kinds of information in an academic sense, being targeted by being filmed from a grave angle.

It is inevitable to say that TÜGVA and similar institutions, which make the relevant call for targeting and organize on this issue, create a threat in our school, which is the safest space for us students. Universities are educational institutions, and we will not allow the education rights of the youth who form the future of our country to be used as material for such propaganda; we are students who aim to add value to our country in the future, within an independent and secular education system, led by science, without being under any pressure.

Considering our university principles and values, we can say that the individuals who turn the incident into an effort to manipulate perception are pursuing conscious policies. In this context, we do not accept or turn a blind eye to the actions of institutions and individuals who threaten us and all Kadir Has members, marginalize us, and cause us to worry about our safety.

Finally, we stand by our professor, who has no other purpose than to add value to us, and we insistently expect the psychological and verbal violence applied to our professor to be investigated by the relevant units. In this regard, we demand that the relevant institutions acknowledge that the call they made contains threats against the institution and its students and that they take the opposite action.”

News Source: 12punto