Cypriot student meeting attacked in Thessaloniki

A GROUP of some 600 Cypriots studying in Greece were attacked at the weekend while attending a meeting at Law Department of the Aristotelio University in Thessaloniki.

The Cypriot students were at the university on Saturday night counting votes ahead of the announcement of election results for the governing board of the Cypriot Students Union in Thessaloniki.

The attack took place as a group of around 50 masked individuals holding baseball bats and knives broke into the university and began throwing Molotov cocktails and other objects.

The Cypriot students, who were inside the amphitheatre of the university, attempted to flee through doors located on the other side of the building.

A few students suffered minor injuries in their attempts to escape the amphitheatre. Others managed to find their way onto the roof of the Law Department to escape the attack.

Once the rioters realised they could not enter the amphitheatre, they attempted to light fire to the building. Their attempts were unsuccessful and they moved outside the grounds of the university, where police intervention managed to avert any other damages and injuries.

Cypriot students in Thessaloniki are no strangers to violence, as this is not the first incident involving Cypriots being attacked in the Greek city.

Back in November 2006, Cypriot student Avgoustinos Demetriou was injured in skirmishes which broke out to mar the 33rd anniversary of the 1973 Polytechnic uprising.

Demetriou was beaten by police officers who reportedly kicked and punched him in the face while he was lying on the ground. The 24-year old student also claimed that police had continued to strike him up even after they had detained him.

Violence involving students has been rife in Greece recently after the government passed a controversial education privatisation bill. Police had clashed with protestors who were demonstrating outside Parliament in Athens two weeks ago.
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The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.