Authorities have reportedly identified one of the suspects involved in a melee early Monday afternoon at the Athens Polytechnic’s mechanical engineering school, the latest on-campus violence in the east Mediterranean country.
Some 20 individuals, most wearing motorcycle helmets, entered the university’s east Athens premises and attacked at least three college students near an on-site canteen, according to reports.
Soon after, some of the suspects subsequently assaulted a canteen employee after she tried to prevent them from plastering posters and vandalizing the storefront.
According to the latest information later in the evening, one individual was identified by the victim as a perpetrator and is being sought on an arrest warrant.
The incident comes a few days after masked suspects beat an individual and interrupted an event at the Athens Law School.
Μost such instances of violence on university campuses emanate from self-styled anarchist and anti-establishment/state groupings, who take advantage of lax security and a decades-old – but recently partially repealed – “asylum status” granted to tertiary education premises, i.e. no police presence.
Reaction by PM
Speaking later in the evening during an interview with public broadcaster ERT, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the government is readying a revised legal framework that will include automatic disciplinary action – even expulsion – against college students committing violent acts on university campuses.
Mitsotakis referred to some “students that have confused freedom of expression with organized violence. It’s one thing to express yourself freely within the framework of an (educational) institution, which encourages freedom of expression, and another to consider that you can enter, bully and assault other, because this is how you want to impose your view.”
