The students were protesting for their right to free education and against the new law which aims to permit police presence in university campuses.
On the orders of Aristotle University's rector, riot police forces intervened by using chemicals and other crowd dispersal methods, while more than 30 students were arrested. In a video published on YouTube, police officers appear violently dragging a student with his head being on the pavement.
Among those who witnessed the brutality of police forces was the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) MP Leonidas Stoltidis who stood by the side of the students and appealed to the rector and police leadership to stop the attack.
Dozens of class-based workers' unions and students' associations have condemned the intervention of police forces at the University campus and the violence unleashed against the protesters.
In a statement, the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) points out:
PAME denounces the violent Police attack against students who protested for their rights in Education which took place in Thessaloniki, on Monday February 22.
This development reveals the hypocrisy and the real plans of the Government. At the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a university that has been closed for a year, at a university where the scientists of tomorrow have not seen their faculties work for a year, Police forces attacked protesting students to ensure “smooth operation” of the University.
Government and University Authorities treat the teachers, the doctors, the architects of tomorrow, as criminals!
It turns out that for the Government crime is to defend Free Education. That is why it sends the police to keep the Universities closed and proceeds with violence and repression against students who want to study! It proceeds to open suppression of the collective processes of the students.
With their law and intimidation, they want to impose a university-Corporation, a university where knowledge and science will be a commodity, without annoying voices claiming Free Education for a better tomorrow for the people.
The class trade union movement, the militant student movement, has responded to violence and repression in more difficult times. The government fools itself if it thinks it will put a stop on peoples´ struggles.
PAME, the class workers movement supports the struggles of its children. We will not accept the transformation of the pandemic into”quarantine” against the people´s movement.
Release all the detained students and open the schools with the necessary protection measures.
The Police-Law of the Government Out of the Universities
The class unions with the students unions hold militant protest at Police Headquarters of Thessaloniki demanding the immediate release of all detained students.
