Tag: Students

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A welcome to our new Iranian students

This is one of the armchairs in my office.

Dozens of students, PhDs, post-docs come to sit here every week for hours of meetings.

Just now, that armchair had the privilege to host an Iranian student with whom I exchanged many emails in the past months. This person finally made it here, to study in our Master’s, despite everything, despite airport and internet closures, despite the violence of the regime governing their country, despite our own Embassy refusing to book appointments for students we have already selected through laborious procedures and online colloquia.

It is true that an armchair is just an armchair, this one a cheap trick bought for £15 in a charity shop in Cardiff a decade ago. But today I’m really glad it got to offer a seat to my new Iranian friend. I hope it will be able to host many more in the coming weeks and years.

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Two anti-militarist events with students in Venice and Turin

In preparation for the national strike on the 28th of November against the militarization of Italian society and for Palestine, this week I will contribute to two student-led self-training gatherings. In both, we will discuss the involvement of our Universities in the military-industrial complex and their relations to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Today, 26th November, at 5 p.m. I will join online the collective @liberisapericritici in Venice — with Mjriam Abu Samra. Info, here.

Tomorrow, 27th November, at 4 p.m. I will join my friends and comrades of the Collettivo Autorganizzato Universitario in Turin, for a session that will see the online participation from CAU collectives in Naples, Padova and more. Info, here.

This is all in preparation of the national strike of the 28th – info, here.

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Police infiltrating student organisation in Italy – an appeal

In recent weeks, numerous cases have emerged of police officers infiltrating the structures of Potere al Popolo, an Italian genuine left political party (https://www.fanpage.it/politica/abbiamo-scoperto-almeno-cinque-poliziotti-infiltrati-in-potere-al-popolo-i-documenti-che-lo-provano/). It has now been revealed that the police have also infiltrated student organizations, in particular Cambiare Rotta – an organization of young communists (CR) and the Collettivo Autorganizzato Universitario (CAU) in several Italian cities (https://www.infoaut.org/divise-e-potere/potere-al-popolo-scoperti-altri-3-poliziotti-infiltrati-nelle-nostre-organizzazioni-giovanili).

These are acts of intimidation. They must be denounced and opposed. CR and CAU have launched a petition to demand light be shed on these serious events (Piantedosi, the interior minister, promised to report to Parliament, but never did).

I invite you to read, circulate, and sign their appeal, which we must make our own: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfsa89UQhiSLc0DJAMnl3oi2hGV2bTqBf2EfTTdyDGmnS9itQ/viewform

Here is the list of the first signatories: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qa35xB-uHA7NufbnZGR7YFWlrm6qj5QasvAcIxr0KLk/edit?tab=t.0

A side note. I participated in a CAU event in Naples in May. I was approached by a guy from the collective who, like others, asked me a lot of questions. A few weeks later, it was revealed that this individual was an undercover anti-terrorism cop. This bothered me. But what disturbs me more is something else. Now that I am back in Naples, I have been talking to some CAU comrades about how the youngest among them might be feeling. They are often first-year university students who have never participated in a street protest before. What the State Police have deployed against them is a textbook strategy of terror. Intimidate them before any action becomes not only possible, but even thinkable. What all these kids have done is denounce the genocide of the Palestinian people when no one else did, fight to defend university spaces from the military, and continue to ask uncomfortable questions.

Now we must show them real, direct solidarity. Because the space they are fighting for is also ours. Please sign and support this petition.