In the aftermath of the attempted coup in 2016, many universities in Turkey were closed leaving staff with no jobs and students with no available schooling. Many staff members of these schools were charged for “supporting a terrorist organization.” Meliksah University was one of those involved. On August 15, 2016 arrest warrants were issued for 100 members of their staff. Sixty-three were detained for 11 days. Then, the court arrested 19 of them, including President, Vice President, General Secretary of the University, Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Department Chairs, Directories of Graduate Schools. The rest of the detainees were released under conditions of judicial control and placed on a travel ban. On March 21, 2018, about 20 months after the arrests, the court sentenced Veli Demirci, the General Secretary, to 11 years, 3 months prison time; Mahmut D Mat, Rector, to 10 years prison time; Murat Sen, Dean of Law school, to 12 years prison time; Prof. Onur Genç, Chair of the Department of Construction Engineering and Prof. Halit Akturk, to 8 years, 9 months prison time; Profs. Emin Emiza, Bilal Vatansever and Dogan Bulut to 6 years 10 months prison time; and Profs. Hayrettin Eren, Mustafa Yuzukirmizi, Metin Mete Ozbilen, Huseyin Kalyoncu, Ahmet Uyar, Mustafa Yilmaz, Nihat Koroglu to 6 years and 3 months prison time. The cases for Profs. Mustafa Unalmis and Kanber Sedef are still pending but they are still currently confined. CCS has written the Turkish Minister of Justice to request a review of these cases with the release of these individuals and a dismissal of their charges and withdrawal of the travel restrictions.
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