FOREHEADS & BACKHANDS
2.31pm Thursday 23 May 2024
The video of an imam’s prayer at Palazzo Nuovo is circulating online. “Firm condemnation” by Minister Bernini who calls the rector Geuna. Meanwhile, the students dismantle the tents and the staging finally seems to end – VIDEO
Not only the occupation of the Rectorate, video messages spread complete with keffiyeh on their heads by pro-Palestine students, all we were missing was the prayer of the Imam which transforms theUniversity of Turin in a mosque. It is the day of the demobilization in via Verdi where, in the wake of the occupations in American universities, a group of students held the rector in check for a week Stefano Geuna. Days in which the university was off limits for students and teachers, in which there were even those who transformed it into a mosque, celebrating the prayers of Muslims. The video is up Youtube for a few days, but had gone unnoticed. It was he who published it Brahim Bayathe same one who celebrated the Friday sermon “to ask for a stop to the collaboration agreements with the universities of the genocidal entity” says Baya.
In a note from the University, rector Geuna “condemns the presence of Imam Brahim Baya engaged in religious activity in university spaces”. It is the university’s number one himself who informs of the conversation with the Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini, who contacted him by telephone. “The incident occurred in a situation of occupation by students, who have been preventing access to university teachers and staff for days; therefore under the full responsibility of the occupiers” says Geuna who showed little ability in managing the protest. A summit dominated, if not actually submissive, to the most extremist demands, as evidenced by the irruption of demonstrators in the Academic Senate which was forced to vote on a motion for the interruption of agreements with Israeli universities, which passed with only opposition ( heroic) of a teacher. The University of Turin “firmly reiterates the secular character of the university institution. The rector and the minister – concludes the note – therefore shared a feeling of full condemnation of what happened”. A little late.
After two days of bivouac it seems that the charade has reached its epilogue. The demonstrators, in fact, interrupted the occupation of the Rectorate this morning and announced, at the same time, a meeting at Palazzo Nuovo, home of the humanities faculties, to then leave in a procession.
