Today in Türkiye, the voice of the youth, their demands for freedom, their search for justice and their longing for an equitable life are being silenced. The government sees every rising dissenting voice as a threat; students who exercise their democratic rights and express their thoughts peacefully are being suppressed with police violence, detentions and arrests.
However, it should not be forgotten: If students are silent, society is silent! If the youth is silent, the future is silent!
Universities, with their different identities and thoughts, are places where the common mind and resistance of peoples sprout. Every student arrested today, from Boğaziçi to Anatolia, from Mersin to Diyarbakır, is not alone. Their struggle is not only for their own rights but also for the future of all labourers, the oppressed and the poor.
As workers, we know that these repressions are no coincidence; they are part of a systematic attack developed by the capitalist order to suppress its crisis. They want to apoliticise the youth, to surrender universities to capital, to create individuals who obey rather than question. Opposing this is not only a matter of conscience; it is also our class duty.
This is our call:
We call on all the oppressed, democratic mass organisations and working people to stand in solidarity with the arrested students.
We invite you to raise your voice together against this injustice on every campus, on every street, in every factory, in front of every workplace.
To embrace the young people who struggle for freedom today is to lay the foundations of a free country tomorrow.
-Subcontracted Municipal Workers Union (TABIB)
