Turkiye shutters liberal Istanbul university seized in criminal probe

Key points

• Council of Higher Education promised to take measures to ensure Bilgi University students ‘suffer no harm’.
• Turkiye has revoked the operational licence ⁠for ⁠a top private university with liberal values, effectively forcing it to close in the middle of the academic year, after the institution was seized ⁠by the state in a criminal investigation last year.
• In a presidential decree, published in the Official Gazette on Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revoked the operating licence for Istanbul Bilgi University, which has an estimated 20,000 students from Turkiye and across the world.
• The decree said the closure is effective immediately.
• The edict cites a law allowing the closure of the independent school if “the expected level of education and training …