About fifty students, in solidarity with the Faculty of Arts students arrested on Friday, protested today in front of the institution against the director’s decision, which they consider unacceptable.
“Tamen, are you listening? We have the right to resist”, “Ignored students are revolted students”, or “Without students, you are nothing, show your face at the entrance” were some of the messages chanted in chorus by dozens of students gathered at the entrance of the Faculty of Arts.
The protest was organised by a group of students from the faculty in solidarity with the four activists arrested by the PSP, on Friday night, for refusing the order to leave the premises, where three of them even stuck their hands to the floor after a week of occupation, which was repeated by several schools in protest against fossil fuels.
Like the other organisers, Iara Sobral did not participate in the occupation. Still, she was not indifferent to the director’s decision, which Miguel Tamen acknowledged had “only three or four precedents in the school in the last fifty years”.
“We did not take part in the occupation, but we are completely in solidarity with the struggle of those who are also fighting for our future, a future that does not include the climate chaos in which we find ourselves,” the student told Lusa.
Recalling the week of occupation, organised by the Student Climate Strike under the international movement “End Fossil: Occupy!” and repeated in five other faculties and schools in Lisbon, Iara Sobral underlines that nothing indicated that outcome.
“Our colleagues did not show violent or disrespectful behaviour towards the faculty, which is theirs. It’s mainly ours and not those who run it”, she said.
One of these demonstrators is Ana Carvalho, who was also among the four students arrested on Friday. She wanted to be present at the protest and, despite regretting that an extreme situation was necessary for more students to support her action, she thanked her colleagues for their support.
Like Iara, she was also surprised by the headmaster’s reaction. “We always know that there is that possibility, but I honestly didn’t think that the faculty would want to give that image”, she said, adding that “now (the director) has to deal with the choice he made and here is the students’ response”.
Despite the chants they chanted, they did not ask for the resignation of the person in charge, but Iara Sobral believes that the director no longer has the conditions to remain in the position and asks that, at least, he comes to the public to assume responsibility.
On Monday, Miguel Tamen sent students, teachers and staff an internal note in which he stated that the college, as an autonomous community, cannot solve the main demands of the activists.
“He never apologises for his anti-democratic action, an attack on the free and democratic faculty that we are trying to build”, lamented Iara Sobral, challenging the person in charge to answer if he considers that he should remain as director “of a faculty that is marked, in its history, by an intense, democratic and free student struggle”. And she added: “We have serious doubts”.
After more than half an hour of protest, some demonstrators ended up demobilising when the activists of the movement ‘End Fossil: Occupy!’ left on their way to the demonstration near the Ministry of Economy and Sea, but another 20 remained near the college entrance, repeating the same messages, under the eye of eight PSP agents.
In addition to the demonstration, the students wrote an open letter addressed to the director of the Faculty of Arts in which they regretted that the person in charge had set himself against the students and urge Miguel Tamen to present an apology. According to Iara Sobral, at the time of the protest, the letter already had more than 200 signatures.
