At the end of a student assembly that invaded the entrance hall of the Faculty of Law of the Sapienza University of Rome, the students occupied the faculty. At the origin of the protest, symbolic given that no educational activities are scheduled on Thursday 6 April, was what took place on Monday in the self-managed classroom dedicated to Bianca Guidetti Serra: partisan, lawyer and Italian politician who disappeared in 2014. Unknown people entered the space dedicated to study and debates and they vandalized it, tearing down all the posters, anti-fascist symbols and the banner dedicated to Serra herself.
“We found the classroom devastated. No irreparable damage, but the most serious thing is that it was an intimidatory attack», says Lorenzo Faranda, 20 years old, enrolled in law school. The students point out that they do not know who did it, since no one has taken responsibility, but also that in recent months they have received various provocations from Azione Universitaria, a youth organization close to the Brothers of Italy and the older sister of Azione Studentesca (involved in the beating in front of the Michelangiolo high school in Florence on 18 February last).
«A few months ago, during an initiative on the 41 bis, the militants of Azione university presented themselves en bloc, with a threatening attitude – continues Faranda – On Wednesday of last week, they then entered the study room asking for names and personal information on the members of the collective. One of us was also reached by telephone by a man who qualified as their representative: he invited him to meet in person to discuss some issues, “one on one” ». Representatives of the right-wing organization heard from Republic they returned the accusations to the sender: “No proof of our guilt”.
The dean of law is Oliviero Diliberto, national secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 2000 to 2013. «I’m here to listen. I do not issue statements », he says to manifesto. A sign of closeness to the students, but silent. Diliberto, however, might only nod his head when a young man attending biology said into the microphone: «Fascists and communists are not the same. The former dragged Italy into the war, the others liberated it».
Anyone who doesn’t speak off the cuff reads the speech on the phone. Those who take the floor always greet «All and everyone» and often say «The students». Several take it out on the rector Antonella Polimeni. She still hasn’t gotten over the letter with which she said last October that the university is not a place in which to “physically collide”. The boys had been charged by the police while they were contesting a right-wing convention, but there was no reference to them in the text.
Many spokesmen from collectives and students of different faculties. Solidarity also came from Anpi Rome. Fabio Pari denounced a “customs clearance of fascism by the institutions” by attacking the statements of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the Fosse Ardetine (“killed because they were Italians”) and those of the president of the Senate Ignazio Benito La Russa on via Rasella (“the partisans killed a band of retired musicians”).
The assembly first moved from the atrium to the Calasso hall and then decided to occupy the faculty for the night.
