Solidarity gathering at Evelpidon courts for the trial of the 28 comrades arrested from the occupation of nomiki for Palestine

Adressing the Law school occupation in solidariy with Palestine in May of 2024 & the court on the 13th of March 2025.

„The only way to render a concept as faithfully as possible is to try to tell a story. The concept of sumud concerns and encompasses everyday processes and the denials expressed through them. In sumud, everyday life does not simply flow alongside resistance, but gives it birth to and synthesizes it, it is born and synthesized by it. Sumud occurs in the simple processes of reproduction of a movement, through the choices that people of the struggle must make in order to survive and be entertained, through their small but necessary sabotages and through the way they organize their celebrations. The somund is in contrast to an „orderly“ conception of pure political action and extends to everything that has been removed from or underestimated in the dominant movement discourse, which – we say – is too Western and too masculine, and claims to define what is useful politically and what is not. In this way, sumoud is very much about (women’s) political action, not only in Palestine, but throughout the world.“ – Rana Subair, In Gaza I dare to dream

A brief historical review of the developments of that period

Both the occupation of Law School for Palestine and the trial set for 13/3/25 should not be perceived as isolated incidents detached from a more general framework of pressure and struggle against the strategy of Israel and the international community to erase the Palestinian people. More specifically, that period was a period of intensification of the genocide but also of an intensification of the international movement of solidarity with Palestine. The genocide continued unabated, the death toll then reached 35,000 Palestinians, the state-capitalist institutions of Western states were getting closer and closer to a deep cooperation with Israel’s weapon industry, and at the same time we were in the making of Israel’s invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost border, where millions of Palestinians were displaced and trapped. Similarly, at the international level, class and social movements using the tools of strikes, mass demonstrations, clashes with police forces – who once again performed the role of protector for the international asset of war – university occupations, sabotagimg of war material and boycotting companies that materially supported the IDF (israely army), they formed a web of resistance against the organized plan of the West, which to this day not only consent but also strengthens the genocidal war in Palestine.

In Greece, the anti-war movement did not develop in its entirety with the same momentum as that created in many metropolitan centers of the Western world. However, there was no shortage of mass demonstrations of the solidarity movement in the streets, interventions on the Palestinian issue in press centers that cover up the genocide and in companies that fund the IDF in any way (ex. intervention in the offices of ZIM in Piraeus and in McDonald’s Syntagma) which often resulted in prosecutions and arrests, the targeting & vandalism in Israeli real estates in the center of Athens, clashes with the police outside the Zionist embassy on the day of Nakba, neighborhood marches in migrant areas of central Athens with strong participation of the Arab population, blockades of workers in Greek ports and railways that would pass over war material, as well as the tool of student occupations.

Why universities?

The university is not a „pure temple of knowledge“ as it is presented, but as a state and capitalist institution it reproduces the demands of the state and capital. Therefore, it promotes the interests of the nation, local and international capital as shown by the latest laws on educational restructuring and the attempt to connect the national interest with curricula, research programs and professional drafting oriented to the demands of the labor market.

In researching programs, the involvement of police, army, secret services, ministries of national defense and private capital are expressed in many ways. A striking example is Intracom DEfence (IDE), a company that undertakes the communication planning of the NATO army and the construction of weapon systems. Both the company itself and its research programs (such as OCEAN2020, SMOTANET, etc.) collaborate with Greek universities such as the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens(EKPA), the National Technical University of Athens(NTUA) etc. IDE was recently acquired by Isreal Aerospace Industries (IAI), which is owned by the government of the State of Israel. IAI is a key company for Israel’s arms industry as it supplies the Israeli military directly. Another example is the research program ANDROMEDA2020, which was carried out at NTUA with the participation of Israel’s Ministry of Public Security. Its aim was to develop maritime and land border surveillance tools.

The collaboration of Greek universities with imperialist interests is not limited only to the level of research programs but is often expressed through events, seminars and agreements of an administrative nature. An example is the „Career Day in Space Technologies, Applications and Services Made in Greece“ at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, in which the war company Lockheed Martin was a direct partner and sponsor, at Panteion the events of the NATO-aligned Institute of International Relations (IDIS), which simultaneously signs agreements with the Army General Staff, as well as the scholarship memorandums between the Department of Sciences of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the multinational war company Lockheed Martin, which will supply, among others, the twenty F-35s of 3.5 billion euros to Greece. For us it was clear from the beginning that the Greek university participates in the genocide of the Palestinian people and in this war it should only be treated as such.

Why did we choose the tool of occupation?

Occupation, even before the regime change in Greece, was one of the most important tools for claiming those from below. Through occupations, mobilizations and clashes on university campuses, universities became a privileged field for socialization, politicization, organization and resistance against the system of exploitation. The Greek state, within the framework of its institution, understood that it is not infinent in power. Its authority has always been threatened and ultimately challenged to this day by the social and political resistance that has been created and fermented within universities. Sterilization, intensification, repression and educational restructuring are aimed at changing this fact and transforming universities into businesses that produce a disciplined workforce.

For our part, choosing the side of the university for which we are still fighting – that of struggles – and linking it to the anti-war movement that emerged in those days around the world, we occupied the Law School of Athens on the evening of May 13th in an effort to territorialize the struggles against the cooperation of Greek universities with the murderus state of Israel, to bring society, the academic and student community before some decisions and thus to redefine the University according to our needs against a repressive effort of years that it believed it had won.

The reaction of the university administration, the evacuation, the repressive operation of the following days & the deportation cases of internationalist comrades

Such action would clearly offend not only the selfishness of the apparent omnipotence of the state, but also that part of the academic community which, either by political agreement or out of political and economic interest, wants the war industry to invade the universities. In this context, the very next morning, the then Dean of Law Linos – Alexandros Sicilianos and the acting Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences, Nikolaos Iriotis, made a complaint to the General Administration Police Department of Athens(GADA) regarding the occupation of the building, while asking for the intervention of the police for the violent end of the occupation.

A few hours later, the evacuation operation of the squat began with the participation of OPKE, RIOT POLICE, DRASI and dozens of security guards. During the police invasion and while students and solidarians inside were trying to resist the forces of repression that invaded the university, the police created a fence around the university pushing back students and professors who opposed the evacuation operation and thus the cover-up of the university’s participation in the genocide. 28 people who were arrested inside the law school were taken to the GADA where they were detained until the next day on charges of: obstruction of public service, public damage, possession of weapons, fireworks law and disobedience. The media undertook once again the promotion of the police operation as a Hollywood spectacle and the cover-up of the bloody participation of the Greek state and university in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Simultaneously with the operation, the GADA seized the opportunity to invade the squatted selfmanaged law café in the courtyard of the school from where they stole political material and equipment. Luckily, this invasion was not enough to prevent people from re-appropriating the café, despite futile attempts by the media and police to portray it as evacuated.

The repressive pogrom did not stop there. At the end of the proceedings, a day after the arrest of the 28 and while the trial was postponed for a future time, the police forces kidnapped 9 of the 28 comrades from the courts of Evelpidon. The Greek state, in cooperation with the embassies of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and England, hastened to give the green light for the deportation of the 9 internationalists in solidarity who were arrested in the law school, on the charge of being „dangerous to the security of the Greek state“. After being kidnapped, the 9 were taken to the Amygdaleza immigration detention center, a hellish prison for tens of thousands of migrants, where they were held in appalling conditions for two weeks. We know clearly that behind the status with which they baptized the 9, there is in fact an organized and punitive plan of economic, mental and physical annihilation of those who fight for the freedom of the Palestinian people. The cases of deportations are still open and the administrative courts of 9 are scheduled to launch in April 2025. The desperate attempt to stifle the solidarity movement in universities came to be expressed even by Prime Minister K. Mitsotakis himself, who was in Alexandroupolis at the time, a not accidental semantic move -since Alexandroupolis is one of NATO’s most important military bases-, declaring his satisfaction with the suppression of the occupation of the Law School for Palestine. As he admitted, other similar moves would follow in other universities.

Results: We’re still here

As the assembly of „Students with Palestine“, despite the evacuation of the occupation and the repressive schemes of the state in the following days, we continued to exist in universities in Athens and to act against the cooperation of Greek institutions with Israel. Together with other assemblies, we interrupted the speech of the Dean Hadjigeorgiou at the war-driven fiesta of the „Researcher’s Night“ at NTUA, we intervened in the „WeAreUoA“ festival in propilaea, we targeted professors and administrations, as in the case of the Zionist Vana Nikolaidou and the philosophy department of the University of Athens that opens the door for Zionist rhetoric in universities, we took to the streets together with other assemblies in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance.

What is actually being tried on March 13, 2025?

The day on which the court of 28 is set is not simply the day on which the occupation of the law school will be individually tried. It is important to understand this trial, like any other, in the context of repression from which it emerged. The judiciary power is part of the repressive operation that was mobilized with such intensity in those days and comes to complement the effort of the university administration, the police, the government, the foreign ministry and embassies, the media, the Greek state and capital as a whole to weaken those who resist the normalization of war. From this point of view, on the day of the trial we must give a massive response by being present in this repressive grid and show our solidarity with those arrested. At the same time, in light of the circumstances of the ongoing war in Palestine, the fragile ceasefire and the new military operations underway in the West Bank,we must continue the struggle until the Palestinian people are free.

We call for a solidarity gathering at the Evelpidon courts, Thursday 13/3, at 09:00, building 2. The trial has the number 6, so it is expected to start early.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE 28 ARRESTED IN THE OCCUPATION OF NOMIKI

END THE JUDICIAL HOSTAGE OF THE 9 INTERNATIONALIST COMRADES – NO THOUGHT OF DEPORTATION

SABOTAGE EVERY COOPERATION THAT PROMOTES ISRAELI INTERESTS

FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE

VICTORY TO THE ARMS OF THE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE

Students with Palestine

Contact email: studentswpalestineathgr@systemli.org

(https://athens.indymedia.org/event/96927/)

passiert am 13.05.2024