Article from 2019
In November 1973, thousands of Greek students occupied one of the largest universities of Athens, the National Polytechnic, demanding the end of the military dictatorship which had started in 1967. The voice of the young students, “the free, fighting Greeks” as the DIY radio station of the occupation repeatedly called them, a voice that is still in the memory of every European democrat following politics at the time, was silenced in the early hours of November 17 when a tank from the military junta crashed through the gates of the university.
The official number of casualties that night was 24. Yet despite the suppression of the uprising, the arrests, the persecutions and the tortures that followed, the junta ended a few months later in July 1974. With the transition to democracy, November 17 is commemorated as a reminder of these struggles.
Fast-forward 45 years later to November 11, 2019 – 200 young Greeks facing the formidable Greek riot police inside the Economic University of Athens are chanting “the dictatorship didn’t end in ‘73”. A huge mobilization follows, with demonstrations and the occupation of over 20 university departments all over Greece, signalling the revival of a student movement which had subsided under the previous government, despite the externally-imposed austerity and the economic hardships of the country in previous years.
University asylum What prompted this cycle of occupations is the violation of “university asylum”, the legal protection of freedom of expression within universities that has been in place since 1982. Contrary to a wave of misinformation by the current government, police intervention in cases of criminal activity is still possible even with the asylum legislation, though only after the expressed permission of the university authorities.
Their excuse for shutting down the Economic University for a week in November was based on a search in the University, thought to be the base of anarchist groups, which revealed nothing more than a few empty bottles and motorbike helmets stashed in some basement. The reality is that Greece’s new government fears a revival of the student movement.