Gavroglou likens Rouvikonas to cheating pupils

Education Minister Costas Gavroglou has likened the members of anarchist group Rouvikonas that have occupied a room at the University of Athens’s Philosophy School over the last two weeks to “pupils who got caught cheating,” saying that as such they are in need of help.

He said the university community must look at the problems of the occupiers and discipline them.

Moreover, he derided university rectors and political parties for calling on police to enter the school premises and end the occupation.

Those calls, he told 24/7 radio station Tuesday, will not lead to a solution to the problems.

Rouvikonas members started holding meetings in the room this month in an apparent bid to promote the group’s agenda and recruit students. 

Meanwhile, the senate of the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) decided Tuesday to keep its doors closed Wednesday to protest against rampant drug dealing on the streets next to its central Athens premises.

“With a sense of responsibility and expressing the anxiety of the university community, and in order to defend the right to health and safety, the senate decided to symbolically suspend the operation of the undergraduate programs of the institution on Wednesday in order to mobilize the state bodies responsible for the immediate and permanent removal of drug dealers and users from streets adjacent to the university,” the senate said in a press release.

University officials have repeatedly complained to authorities that Antoniadou Street, in particular, has turned into a hub for drug dealers and users, posing a risk to the health and security of students and staff.

A petition by student groups calling for immediate action has so far collected more than 1,000 signatures.