Islamic Human Rights Commission

PRESS RELEASE

11/June/99

Education rights violations 1998 – 1999
Istanbul University throws out exam students

Istanbul University students who wear the hijab are first interrogated, then forced to sign a statement saying that they will remove their hijab.

Istanbul University started its traditional oppression early this year. Students who had secured a place at university were brought to the Avelar Campus as soon as they stepped off their bus, in a bid to prevent them establishing any kind of relationship with organisations or foundations.
Hundreds of students wearing the hijab were brought to the campus and interrogated by Kemal Alemdarolu. It has been established that the students were taken to special interview rooms and interrogated in front of a camera.

The students were then forced to sign a statement declaring that they will obey regulations related to the prohibition of the hijab. Anyone refusing to sign such a statement was not allowed to register with the university.

The statement says which the students are forced to sign says: “The students of Istanbul University are not to wear any clothes or anything which symbolizes any ideology, policy, racial and religious signs in the buildings of the University.”