The rectory of the University of Barcelona is currently being occupied by around 100 students, who have been there since Tuesday, will continue their sit-in until Saturday (today) it is said.
The protestors at the historic building in Barcelona, Spain are demanding the release without charges of all the students who were detained by police at the disturbances on Tuesday, no more University fee increases and no more teacher/professor layoffs.
The director’s of Barcelona’s University have warned student council representatives that the police will have the authority to evict protestors if they do not vacate the building by Saturday (today).
Carles Carreras, the University of Barcelona’s deputy rector, who has called on the regional interior ministry to oversee the eviction of protestors from the historic building said:
We have already asked for police intervention and will now decide when to intervene”, he said, calling on students to exchange the sit-in for dialog. He made it clear that the directors of the university were not prepared to allow the historic building to turn into a “hotel for the minority” underlining the fact that the majority of students do not condone the sit-in or the damage that has been done to university property.
Mr Carreras also told the student protestors that the university directors “understand and share” their grievances, but utterly reject violence as a means towards negotiation.