Hasan İsmail H., a senior student at the Faculty of Law at Çankaya University shot the research assistant of the same faculty, Ceren Damar, dead and attacked her with a knife after shooting on January 2. Çankaya University is a private university founded in 1997 in the capital city of Turkey, Ankara.
After the incident, the suspect who fled the campus with a car was caught by the police in the same region soon after. The suspect was detained. The gun used by Hasan İsmail H. was said to belong to his father.
The suspect told the police in his statement that he was going to the campus only when there were exams; he had three exams that day and "had no chance than cheating to pass the class".
"After the exam started, I took out the cheating material I prepared. After a while, Ceren Damar caught me while cheating. She wrote an official report of the incident. I talked to her a couple of times that day. I went to her office but she didn't listen to me and told me to go out", he added.
The first announcement from the university was denouncing the exams, and then a second statement was shared with a message of condolence.
ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PARTICIPANTS: MARKETIZATION CONTINUES AGGRESSIVELY IN UNIVERSITIES
The Association of University Participants (ÜKD) in Turkey issued a statement regarding the incident. Stating that the incident should not be considered as an isolated and extreme incident since there is a constant threat against the workers of science in Turkey. ÜKD stated that the social, economic and political conditions that encourage the aggressor are the main sources of concern and “this murder, unfortunately, is one of the stops of a certain point of arrival. Marketization continues aggressively in universities, and the students' and their families' view of university education has been equaled with shopping that they expect to pay for service.”
"The fact that university administrations consider students as customers is reflected as the attempts to ensure the safety of instructors only by means of technical measures and the ignorance of the fact that the scholars are being discredited. ...The fact that the teaching staff is threatened by the administrations by means of dismissal, reduction of wages, mobbing, and workload makes the situation even worse”, ÜKD’s statement continued.
The statement ended by reminding that workers of science should not be and are not alone against these threats. “We're not alone, we shouldn't be; no matter how long we've been alone, we have to get organized today”, it added.
