More than 200 immigrants on hunger strike ended a five-day occupation of Athens University’s Law School early Friday, following a tense standoff with police that underscored the country’s ongoing illegal immigration crisis.
The immigrants, on hunger strike since Tuesday, were joined by scores of Greek demonstrators and left the university building before marching across the city centre to a private building rented by pro-migrant campaigners in the centre of Athens.
Scores of police – including special forces – had surrounded the central Athens campus building on Thursday during more than 10 hours of negotiations that finally ended at 3:30am Friday (0130 GMT) when the immigrants walked out carrying rolls of blankets and thin mattresses.
They filed past police, raising their arms to make the victory sign, as onlookers chanted slogans against the government and police.
The immigrants, mostly from North Africa, launched the hunger strike at Athens University Law School after taking a ferry to Athens from the island of Crete.
Supporters said 50 others went on a hunger strike in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.
Most of the immigrants have been in Greece at least two years, some as many as 10, and are employed in poorly paying manual labour jobs. Some had applied for legal papers but their applications were rejected, they say.
They occupied the law faculty to put pressure on authorities to give them residency permits, in a move criticised by both the government and the conservative opposition and university authorities.
Universities are usually off limits for security forces, owing to the bloody repression of an anti-junta student uprising back in 1973.
With a breaj from the past university authorities granted police a rare permission on Thursday to enter the campus, paving the way for a possible intervention.
Source: Athen News, AAP
