Student severely injured due to police gas bomb

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Police usespepper gas and pressurized water against the protesting students, who were not allowed to approach the ceremony hall.

Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy chairman Hüseyin Çelik has called student prostesters who marched against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Dec. 18 “incorrigible nationalists,” while one student protestor suffered a brain hemorrhage after a gas bomb hit him in the head during clashes between police and students.

Law student Barış Barışık has suffered brain hemorrhaging after a gas bomb hit him in the head during clashes between students and police at Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) in Ankara on Dec. 18. A group of ODTÜ students protested the visit of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who came to the university to attend the Göktürk-2 satellite launch ceremony Dec. 18.

Police used pepper gas and pressurized water against the protesting students, who were not allowed to approach the ceremony hall.

A total of 26 students were detained while five were injured due to the gas. Barışık, who was hit in the head with a gas bomb, suffered brain hemorrhaging. He is reportedly in critical condition.

After the clashes, 50 academics gathered in front of the rectorate building and criticized police violence and detentions.

Meanwhile, Hüseyin Çelik, the deputy chairman and spokesman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said the people protesting at ODTÜ were “incorrigible nationalists.”

“I congratulate everyone contributing to that [satellite launch], particularly our esteemed prime minister in the first place. And what do you think about the demonstration of these incorrigible nationalists at ODTÜ?” Çelik wrote on his Twitter account yesterday.