Hundreds of student occupations across Greece

A new wave of occupations has hit off in Greece, now counting more than 200 of the 460 departments across the country.

Students are protesting the new neoliberal education bill that was signed into law on August 24th. Assemblies are taking place in all the universities and a new the wave of student struggles after the last one in 2007 looks likely. Read more in English in these articles copied from Occupied London Blog:

At least 87 departments under student occupation across Greece, with the number increasing by the hour

At least 87 departments across the country are now under student occupation — General Assemblies are happening all of this and next week and it is very likely that the number will increase dramatically. There seems to be a completely unprecedented agreement between students across almost the entire political spectrum for mobilisations against the voted law: this is rapidly becoming a stand-off between the Student community and the Parliament.

Here is a google map with departments under occupation — please note that it’s not quite up-to-date, as the number of departments increases rapidly, literally by the hour.

Student demonstrations have been called for September 1st, in Athens and September 2nd, in Thessaloniki.

At least 45 university departments occupied by their students in Greece, gearing up for another winter of discontent

Only days after the new education bill was voted into law, bringing sweeping changes to Greece’s higher education system (immense funding cuts, abolition of the academic asylum etc), students on the ground have been organising their response. So far, more than 45 university departments have been occupied by their students, following General Assemblies in each of them; many more are due to follow in the next few days.In Athens, all 9 departments of the Polytechnic (NTUA) are now occupied; the entire Panteion (Social Sciences) University is also occupied, along with some departments of the University of Athens. There are also occupations in Patras, Thessaloniki and Chania (Crete), with the list growing by the hour.A student demonstration has been called in Athens for Thursday, September 1st.

2 thoughts on “Hundreds of student occupations across Greece”

Law School of Athens, 1/9/2011 – Press release of occupied universities in Greece

On the day of the official academic-year opening, the student movement, the university personnel and the academic community as a whole declare proudly: this education reform will be blocked.

Our decisive struggle has just started! It already counts 96 occupied departments of Universities and Polytechnics (cc. the occupied departments are now more than 200) and one big demonstration against the reform and the governmental policy (7000 demonstrators on September 1rst , in Athens) .

We declare our disobedience to the political decisions of the alliance of PASOK-ND-LAOS (cc. social democrats-conservatis-extreme right) and the directives of the Troika (EU, IMF, ECB). We warn them that we are not stepping back unless the reform is withdrawn and the ones that voted for it leave.

We are not terrorized by the behated minority of the 250 members of the parliament who, following the orders of Troika and the IMF, have brought the youth and the working people at the edge of the cliff.

We will continue until the final victory building our movement on the student assemblies and having the active support of the academic community as a whole.

We have no other choice but overthrowing the reform that abolishes the public and free character of education and the university itself. Contrary to what they claim, this reform creates even more problems for higher education than solving the existing ones. This reform aims at depriving the current degrees of any value and destroys the employment prospects of university graduates. This reform deepens the dependency of universities from the private sector and imposes an unprecedented intensification of studies. This reform legalises the invasion of the free market in universities and polytechnics. At the same time, this reform abolishes students’ rights and establishes an oppressive regime in universities.

The society as a whole stands on our side: the young unemployed who experience the odyssey of precarity, the workers who daily see their salary being slashed, the primary and high-school students that experience the closing down of their schools and the deterioration of their studies as well as every active person who struggles against this government of terror and brutality.

The historical moments of June 2011 showed that we can only make them leave with joined, decisive, direct-democratic struggle.

In the coming days, we will coordinate our actions with the disobidient movement of the Syntagma square than is planning a big rally on Saturday 3 September. Furthermore, we will organize joined actions with high-school students, secondary and primary school teachers in order to escalate our just struggle.

Our next stop is to organize an even larger education-wide demonstration next Thursday 8/9 and a big anti-government demonstration at the International Exhibition in Thessaloniki on September 10. We will not go a single step backwards from our fair struggle. This unacceptable reform by the minister of Education Diamantopoulou and the reactionary governmental policy of PASOK and the Toika can and should be overthrown!

BREAD-EDUCATION-FREEDOM
LET’S GO FOR THE STRUGGLES OF OUR GENERATION

Law School of Athens, 1/9/2011

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