Police mandhandle protesters at Ankara University on Thursday. Video by Alp Eren Kaya/Görünüm Gazetesi.



Several hundred of us, both Turks and Kurds, students and professors, were protesting just outside the university campus on Thursday. We were denouncing the fact that our government is standing idly by while Kobane [a Kurdish city right across the border from Turkey, in Syria] is getting attacked by the Islamic State group jihadists. The police showed up in riot gear and sprayed us with water cannons, so we retreated onto the campus grounds, and they followed us in.They chased us around, insulted us, beat us, and arrested 25 people [20 students and five lecturers]. All along, they were flashing the four-finger salute. They flashed it at us, and they flashed it at students who weren’t participating in the protest, just watching. Some also put up one finger, which is an Islamic gesture that means “there is only one Allah”. They flashed these signs repeatedly, like a symbol of victory. They certainly weren’t using it to organise themselves – some people claimed online that there were four groups of police officers, and that that’s what they were communicating, but if so, where was number 2? Or 3?To me and to other protesters, who are in favor of secularism, this behavior translated to, “We are an Islamic country, and you can’t fight against Islam; Islam always wins.”