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University students, organised around issues such as lawlessness, financial hardship and injustice in the country, particularly fundamental problems such as accommodation, food and transport, frightened the government. Immediately after the coup on 19 March, university students marched to Saraçhane, breaking through the barricades, igniting the spark and paving the way for protests that spread across the country. As the student movements, shaking off the dust of inactivity, gained strength in many centres, particularly in İstanbul and Ankara, the Palace administration pressed the button.
While Hacettepe University students continued their resistance for days for the right to eat at their school, a group wearing ski masks and carrying clubs attacked them at the Beytepe Campus the previous day. It was reported that a group called the ‘Hacettepe Ülkücü Organisation’ had called for a ‘change of leader and handover of the flag’. Students at the university reacted to this call. At this point, a group of masked fascists attacked the students, injuring some of them. Footage showed that security did not intervene. Some social media posts showed a person with a club moving with security, placing the club behind his back and walking with it. Fatih Aydın, Deputy Chairman of the Ülkü Ocakları Education and Culture Foundation, who identified himself as a member of the Hacettepe University Ülkücüleri (Nationalist Movement), also acknowledged the attack with a club.
ARRESTED WHILE INJURED
After the incident, the injured students and their friends went to Bilkent City Hospital. The police then attempted to arrest the students while they were being examined by doctors. Many students who objected to this were surrounded in the hospital garden. Lawyer Döndü Kurşunoğlu stated that her client was to be detained while under observation. Kurşunoğlu said, ‘Our client is to be detained even before the CT scan results are out. Our client cannot be taken to the police station in this condition.’ A total of 28 students, including an injured student waiting in line with his examination paper, were detained. After the procedures at the police station, 23 of the students were released, while 5 were referred to the courthouse in the evening with a request for arrest.
LET’S UNITE AGAINST FASCIST TERROR
Meanwhile, there was widespread reaction to the fascist attack. The LEFT Party issued a statement saying: “Let’s Unite Against Fascist Terror in Universities. Faced with the legitimate struggle of students at Hacettepe University who have been demanding the rights to a humane life, shelter and food for weeks, the university authorities brought in an organised gang of fascists with clubs from outside the university. This regime, which offers young people no future, is attempting to silence the rising voice of youth through the CIA-backed nationalist gangs we know from Maraş, Çorum, and Madımak. The last gasps of this reactionary minority, which has lost its power and all legitimacy in the eyes of the people, are futile. The future of this country will be built by those who stand up for their country. We call on all revolutionary, patriotic, democratic public opinion and the youth who are rising up for their future to unite against fascist terror in universities.”
EXPANDING SOLIDARITY
University students gathered in front of İstanbul University also made a statement regarding the attack at Hacettepe. In the statement, they declared:
“As university students, we are shouting from here today that we will continue our resistance against practices that protect fascist gangs and surrender campuses to capital and control; we will continue to fight for universities to remain autonomous and democratic spaces. We are expanding our solidarity from Beyazıt to Beytepe: our fellow students at Hacettepe are not alone. The attacks at Hacettepe University are not just a matter for the students there. These attacks are an attack on all students’ quest for rights. Those who set ambushes for us in collaboration with fascist gangs on our campuses, who brought dozens of riot police onto campus for the fascists’ ‘ceremony’, who tried to prevent our injured friends from receiving treatment, and who detained them during medical examinations are committing crimes. From Beytepe to DTCF, our voice is one across campuses across the country: ‘Universities will be the grave of fascism.’ The Ankara Labour and Democracy Forces, who gathered in front of the Sıhhiye Courthouse in support of the young people detained and injured in Ankara, also issued a statement of support. The statement emphasised that the government had sent fascist gangs against students seeking their rights, and stated that students at ODTÜ, Hacettepe, and DTCF would continue to fight relentlessly against the attacks by the government and fascist gangs. The statement assessed the attacks as an attempt by the single man who wants to remain in power for life and the current regime to perpetuate their own existence.”
The statement included the following remarks:
“Who are these fascists who attack universities with clubs in their hands and masks on their faces? How did they enter the university, which they are trying to turn into an open-air prison? Why did the riot police brought onto the campus not intervene against the fascists attacking students with clubs? It is clear where the security guards protecting the club-wielding attackers got their courage from.”
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?
Minutes after the masked and machets-wielding attack at Hacettepe University, Ömer Oğuz Yıldız, a leader of the AKP’s Youth Wing, posted, ‘I will wash myself with your blood,’ tagging Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya and Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç in his message. The Ülkü Ocakları, which had been losing power at the university for some time, held a gathering in Beytepe on the day of the attack under the name ‘leader handover ceremony.’ Following the attack, Kayra Utku Sürenler, the Ankara Ülkü Ocakları Provincial Deputy Chairman responsible for universities, also made similar posts.
Some questions that the public is curious about are as follows:
• Who are the attackers who are not students? How are they able to enter the school freely?
• Why did school security not take steps to prevent the knife attack?
• Were members of drug gangs brought onto campus?
• Is this a new type of organisational structure?
• Why has no investigation been launched?
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Palalı çetelere geçit vermeyiz, published in BirGün newspaper on October 29, 2025.
