Clashes, arrests, hunger strike. The police van parked at gate 1 of the La Sapienza University of Rome, in Piazzale Aldo Moro, suggests the image of a university in revolt and in a state of alert, even more so after yesterday’s tensions.
The boys reiterate their requests starting from the essential “stop the agreements with Israel and the war industries”. After yesterday’s clashes, in which according to the police at least five anarchists “unrelated to university contexts” and a Palestinian from the Palestinian Arab Democratic Union (UDAC) were present, the youth garrisons at Sapienza remain: the tent city on the lawn and the students chained in front of the rectorate are a sign that the protest continues.
Yesterday they were Martina and Letizia, chained, today they are Francesca and Leonardo, who add another act of protest to their struggle: the hunger strike. In an appeal they explain the reasons for their gesture and invite “democrats, pacifists and civil society to support the requests of students and academics in universities to stop the genocide in Palestine”. They are on hunger strike because Italy “is not yet willing to work to build the conditions for peace”, they explain.
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And they find themselves in front of the rectorate of Sapienza “because it is from the heart of the largest university in Europe that obtaining a step back from those who are complicit in a genocide can produce an important change”. The protest will continue indefinitely until “the rector Antonella Polimeni listens to our requests”, Francesca says while she is chained to the totem with a Palestinian flag next to her. And messages of solidarity signed Cambiare Rotta arrive from universities all over Italy, from Turin to Bari, all awakened by this spring of militancy. On the same day, some students from Spazio Catai and Potere al Popolo occupied a room at the University of Padua to renew their request to the rector Daniela Mapelli to discuss a motion relating to the academic boycott of Israel. Questioning research partnerships as Turin, Pisa and Bari have done. At Sapienza, gathered in a press conference in front of friends on hunger strike, the students of groups and collectives have made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon “for a large public assembly” on the university lawn. They would like, here, a discussion with Polimeni because, they say, “it is not acceptable for her to flee from dialogue with her community”.
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The two demonstrators arrested during the protests during the academic senate in which 27 officers were injured are holding a sign with the words “Free Star, Free Mohammed” in their hands. The first is accused of resisting a public official and causing injury, while the second is accused of aggravated damage for getting into a police car. Both were released in the early hours of the afternoon on the orders of the judges who, however, validated the arrests without imposing precautionary measures. Stella denied all accusations in the courtroom. Furthermore, for the guys from Sapienza for Palestine, “it is specious to continue talking about an attack on the police station that didn’t happen”. Tension in universities is high. Tomorrow at the Conference of Rectors a document on security drawn up by a working group will be discussed. Furthermore, a committee for order and security is planned for 24 April with the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi and the Minister of the University Anna Maria Bernini who confirms the line of recent days: legitimate protests, no violence. For this reason, based on what we learn from qualified sources, the convened committee is confirmed to be useful also in light of the infiltration of anarchists among the students. From the Interior Ministry the line has been reiterated for some time: no restrictive changes are planned in the management of public order in universities. There is, on the part of the police forces, maximum attention on the antagonistic and anarchist groups in the area who aim to ride the university protest by raising the level of street clashes.
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