There is university asylum; And if so, what exactly is it? Does it create abysses and "nuclei of lawlessness" or does it protect university knowledge - and if necessary - struggling sections of the people? The above questions are part of a topical discussion that lasts… 180 years!
From the above number, the first conclusion that emerges is that this particular conversation is not only easy and certainly what does not fit are aphorisms, curses and curses.
Many laws have tried over the past 180 years (although the truth is that by law we have to talk about the period from 1982 onwards) to describe what asylum is and who it protects. And somewhere here we come to the biggest "myth":
To date, no government has legislated the existence of university asylum as a safe haven for criminal acts, and this is clear in almost all relevant laws.
And then, what is hatred and mutual hatred for? This is exactly where the political cost or the attempt to capture political surplus value comes in handy on an issue that touches on the sensitive strings of society and things get confused. But let's start from the beginning…
In the beginning are the "Skiadika"
In May 1859, the then Greek Foreign Minister expressed the view that wealthy families should boost domestic production. His son spreads this idea in student circles. Thus, on May 10, a symbolic procession is held by students in which the participants wear straw hats from Sifnos called "shadows".
The hat importers, however, respond by sending employees to Areos field wearing tattered clothes to make fun of the students who in turn react and ίζει the wood begins! The police are called, which leaves the employees untouched and arrests only students.
In response, the next day the enraged students gathered at the Propylaea and demanded successive meetings from the Minister of Interior to Othon himself in order to ask for the "head" of the police commander. Their request was not accepted and while incidents were threatened, the guard of Athens sent a large military force to the spot and expelled the students. Eventually at the end of the day the police commander was stopped and the arrested students were released.
The next day, the entry of the army into the university was denounced to the Senate as a violation of the "asylum of science", which is the virgin mention of an unwritten institution of modern Greek history.
The junta, the polytechnic and the first law
From 1859 onwards, therefore, although there was no relevant… canon law, there was this "unwritten law" which in essence institutionalized the existence of a university asylum which no one (with a few exceptions) disputed.
Even the dictatorship of the colonels when first in the events of Nomiki in February 1973 and then of course in Polytechnic of 1973, did not dispute the existence of this unwritten law. Despite the fact that he constantly sent insurers to the university institutions, he did not make any relevant move in the events of Nomiki in February. While in the second and forgotten Law (the events of March of the same year), the police invaded after first obtaining the relevant permission from the rectory authorities.
Regarding the clearly more important events of the great uprising of November and despite the fact that the most emblematic encroachment of the university asylum took place with the invasion of the tank, the junta felt the need to apologize (and in fact to acknowledge the very existence of asylum) emphasizing that "the vast majority of those gathered within the Institution consisted of persons of various categories foreign to the Polytechnic"!
Almost with the beginning of the post-government period, the first attempts began to create the first regular law that would institutionalize university asylum. The oppositions of the Karamanlis and Ralli governments, however, with the opposition and mainly with the PASOK of Andreas Papandreou did not allow it.
Finally, the first law on university asylum was made by the "government of change" which with Law 1268/82 formally institutionalized its existence, creating a protective shell around the institutions. From then until today, a lot of water has flowed into the ditch and any attempt to change this regime means… street battles and political conflicts without mercy.
All the modern laws and what they say about asylum
In fact, from 1982 until initially in 2007 and then in 2011, and with small individual interventions, the PASOK law on university asylum was "slightly disturbed". The most important were with the famous law of Marietta Giannakou (Law 3549/2007) which led to a months-long student uprising with the episodes in the center of Athens and other big cities taking place every week. The law was eventually passed amid fiery roadblocks and violent clashes.
The same happened more or less with Law 4009/11 of Anna Diamantopoulou, which was also voted by New Democracy and according to many was a rehearsal of co-government of the two parties, a little later and in the middle of the memorandum years.
In turn, Law 4009/11 of Anna Diamantopoulou was withdrawn to take its place Law 4485/2017 of Costas Gavroglou on SYRIZA and which is that closest to the first law of 1982.
All of these laws record that asylum guarantees academic freedom and the free circulation of ideas and protects the right to learning, knowledge and work. The description of what is asylum was clear and therefore anything that was not related to it automatically meant that the competent body (the only exception here is the Diamantopoulou law) ie the Rector's Council, had to call the police to intervene.
Just depending on the period and of course the government it was more difficult (see PASOK of the 1980s and SYRIZA), or easier (see ND and… modern PASOK). Although the ξύ oxymorons were not missing.
In the 1982 law, for example, the Rector's Council could not secure the unanimity required because students systematically disagreed. This, of course, did not prevent the most emblematic removal of asylum at the Polytechnic during the uprising of November 1995.
On the contrary, although the Diamantopoulou law allowed the police not to differentiate the treatment of criminal acts inside and outside university institutions, it did not intervene even when summoned because it feared the general reactions but also because there was in the atmosphere the "ghost" of "political cover"!
The same with the law Giannakou in 2007 where he abolished the complex procedures of 1982, transferring the responsibility for the abolition of asylum to the small Rector's Council and delimited the institution to cover only educational functions. Nevertheless, the Karamanlis government never sent them checkmate in schools even in the great uprising of December 2008!
The law of Costas Gavroglou, which was in force until just 24 hours ago, provided that "intervention of public force in the premises of HEIs is allowed ex officio in cases of crimes (such as drug trafficking), as well as crimes against life and following a decision of the Rector's Council in any other case."
The relevant provision restores the competence of the rector's council and declares that the institution protects - apart from the academic functions - "the establishment of democratic values".
Asylum withdrawals and paradoxes
As it is easily understood, from 1982 until today, the law, either in a simple way or in a more complex way, has always given the police the right to intervene within the institutions. Whether the operation was carried out or not had more to do with politicians or the fear of the police to proceed with brutal repression if there were thousands of people in a courtyard, for example.
In the period from 1983 to 2006 (when theoretically it was more difficult to remove) there were at least 13 raids by police or even military personnel on campus. Contrary to 2007 and after that theoretically with the laws of Giannakos and Diamantopoulou things were simpler the surgeries were measured on the fingers of one hand and not when they involved large-scale disorders.
But how did university campuses begin to be used as battlefields between anarchist and police forces? This is probably the most paradoxical thing in all of this 180-year history. For the first time on such a large scale this happened on May 9, 1985. Then teams anarchists gathered in Exarcheion Square, protesting against the daily "virtue operations" of the police. The gathering was banned as was customary at the time and the police director D. Hochtoulas warned the gathered with a handgun: "It is not legal to have asylum here. We will arrest you and level you! After a few moments of embarrassment the message was received. The crowd left the scene and went to the nearest university building. The Chemist! They stayed there for four days when they left… peacefully, after many hours of fighting with the police!
Finally, for historical reasons only, it should be mentioned that after the enactment of law 1268/82, the first fight for university asylum took place on January 5, 1983. Then a police officer raided the Aristotle University to arrest an employee who had quarreled with the contractor. cleaning (worked within the institution) after his dismissal. The students reacted and reported the violation, while the rector declared… ignorance of the law!