Within days of being installed at the behest of the international financial elite, the new Greek coalition government led by top banker and prime minister Lucas Papademos has signalled its intention to impose cuts by authoritarian means.On November 17 the government utilised the abolition in August of the Academic Asylum law by the previous social democratic PASOK government to authorise the police entry into a public university, at Thessaloniki, for the first time since 1982.The Academic Asylum' legislation law, barring the police from campuses, was passed in the early 1980s. It required police to seek the permission of a prosecutor before being able to enter the grounds of higher education establishments. Students were guaranteed sanctuary from arrest or state brutality.The law was enacted in response to the brutal murder of students who took part in an uprising at the Polytechnic in Athens on November 17, 1973, by the US-backed military junta. On that day students launched strike action under the slogan of “bread, education, freedom”, against the Greek military, led by George Papadopoulos, which had taken power in 1967.
more from daily news »