Solidarity with students fighting Erdogan’s regime

Protest in Manchester, March 24th 2025

Socialist Students sends solidarity to the mass protests in Turkey fighting back against the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Despite an official ban on demonstrations and other restrictions, university students and young people have been organising for many days on campuses and on the streets, heroically battling against police brutality. Students in a number of areas have launched boycotts of their universities.

The protests were set alight by the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, on alleged corruption charges, just as he was set to be announced as the presidential candidate for the main capitalist CHP opposition party. This follows a series of arrests of hundreds of trade unionists, socialists, journalists and other activists, as Erdogan tries in desperation to clamp down on any opposition to his increasingly unpopular government. His government has implemented a new round of brutal cuts to public spending, and overseen relentless attacks on democratic rights.

As students in Britain, we stand in solidarity with the struggles of young people in Turkey for an end to state repression and worsening living standards. The university and school students at the heart of the mass protests in Turkey say that see no future for themselves the way things are today. The outlook in Britain is no different, where Keir Starmer’s Labour government is overseeing devastating cuts to education, while allowing an ever-growing gap between young workers’ wages and the cost of a decent life. Around the world, all young people see is a capitalist system in crisis – war, oppression, poverty, climate catastrophe and misery for the vast majority of people.

Socialist Students fights for a socialist alternative to capitalism, as the only way to give all young people a decent future free of poverty and oppression. This means students uniting with the working class in a mass movement that is armed with a socialist programme to transform society – fighting to take the banks and major companies that dominate the economy under the democratic control and management of working-class people, so that society can be planned to meet the needs of all people.

Let’s organise to kick out Erdogan, Starmer and all the capitalist politicians along with their sick system!

  • Solidarity with protestors fighting Erdogan’s regime in Turkey
  • End the attacks on democratic rights 
  • Fight the cost-of-living crisis and kick out Erdogan
  • Fight for a socialist alternative to Erdogan, Starmer, Trump and all the capitalist politicians

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