The 237 economic migrants occupying an Athens University Law School building were still there on Thursday afternoon, discussing a proposal by university authorities that they be moved to another suitable building in the centre of Athens to continue their hunger strike.
Authorities are waiting for their decision before deciding what action to take, hoping to avoid the need to forcefully evict them from the building.
The Initiative for Solidarity with Migrants' that helped bring the migrants to Athens from Crete and got them into the building will hold a meeting at 7:00, while stressing that the final decision on whether to agree to move will be made by the migrants themselves.
An empty building meeting the necessary safety and hygiene standards was found with the assistance of non-governmental organisations late on Wednesday night and representatives of the migrants paid it a visit to check that it meets requirements. So far, however, the group has made no final decision on whether they are willing to move.
Early on Thursday morning, Supreme Court Prosecutor Ioannis Tentes paid a visit to the Athens University Rector Theodosis Pelegrinis. After the meeting, the rector said he was anxious to avoid a violent evacuation of the building and Tentes stressed that law enforcement authorities could not intervene unless they were invited to enter the building by the university.
On the side of the government, however, ministers stress that the situation must be brought to an end swiftly and they have repeatedly stressed that university authorities must apply the law and invite police to evacuate the building if the migrants refuse to leave.
"There are no margins for extending a situation that benefits neither the country nor anyone else," Education Minister Anna Diamantopoulou said in Parliament on Thursday.
The minister stressed that the entry of the migrants into the building was an "abuse and infringement of university asylum by a group of migrants that was led there and guided by specific organisations and political forces".
She also stressed that a legal framework for dealing with such situations existed and had to be enforced.
Diamantopoulou noted that the university's proposal that the migrants be moved to another building off the campus was positive, noting that the education ministry was awaiting an answer and that this had to be given soon.
University authorities decided on Thursday to reopen the law school in an adjacent building, after initially closing it on grounds of health and safety when the migrants first moved in.
The migrants are occupying an older building that was not currently being used for classes but was undergoing repairs and renovation. They arrived there on Sunday night from Crete and began a mass hunger-strike to demand legal residence status for themselves and all the roughly 400,000 illegal migrants currently estimated to be in Greece.
source: ana
