This day of mobilization was set by the StudAut assembly last November 2-3 in Pisa, a moment of open debate and decision among Italian high school students, completely free from the grip of parties and representative politics’ institutions, and antagonist to them.

The greatest political development of this November 15, in addition of consolidating their presence in all the main Italian cities (and forcing bureaucratic trade unions’ and parties’ proxies in the education sector to try to jump on the bandwagon through playing facades of radical practices), was the ability of the high school autonomous students to delve into the wide range of social issues aroused by the October 19 Movement, by welcoming in their marches mestizo social strata and practices of struggle relating to Housing, Mobility, Migration, Digital Rights, Environment and Anticapitalism. In addition to the reclamation of their schools, threatened by cuts, mismanagement, rundown conditions of school buildings and lack of student housing and spaces.

In Brescia, under a heavy rain, hundreds of students, refugees and homeless people marched through the city, throwing eggs at the provincial administration headquarters and squatting a building in the Carmine neighbourhood to provide a solution for the housing emergency affecting migrant people in particular.

In Bologna, with the solidarity of the workers of the local transport company (which avoided the hapless trade union concurrent march), the students laid siege to the Province headquarters in response to the limitation of school assembly rights, clashing with the police rushed to defend the building. After withstanding three police charges and in contempt of the wounds, the students moved to occupy a key junction of Bologna’s ring road and set up an assembly there.

In Milan the Italian Google headquarters were invaded by scores of people donning the Guy Fawkes mask, in protest against the ICT company policies and its role in the NSA mass espionage program. Red V signs were painted on the company’s offices walls and slogans against commoditization of social control and privacy violations, and in praise of the Anonymous worldwide network, were chanted.

In Modena students denounced the post-2012 earthquake condition of abandoned public school buildings and the public transport steep prices, and occupied a school gym, in spite of provocations from political police.

In Naples over 5000 people took the streets against the increasingly neoliberal character imposed on Italian high school education and the State-Mafia association inflicting great pain to the people of Campania region through indiscriminate and abetting proliferation of harmful waste (the so-called “biocide”). Violent police charges occurred in front of the Regional Environment Department, ending in the arrest of three students. The students answered by revamping their call for participation in tomorrow’s day of struggle against biocide, and to reclaim popular sovereignty over those territories.

In Palermo 20.000 people participated in the students’ demonstration. University students permanently occupied an abandoned space close in the University area in order to install a selfmanaged library there. Families and homeless people occupied the Social Policies Regional Department, while No Muos activists against the US military radar project occupied the Environmental one. Clashes with the police ensued beneath the regional government palace, with the temporary arrest of a student.

In Pisa and in Rome the high schoolers protested for the lack of students’ housing, a blunder partially answered by the occupation of houses in the previous days.

In Turin the rage of the students was addressed once again to the local governing bodies, after the collapse of a school in the previous days; still, other targets were addressed: Monte dei Paschi bank (Italy’s third largest one) was pelted with eggs, and the local offices of the Minister of University and Research were assaulted by the students.

In the end, all over the country the “uprising!” and “siege!” rallying cries of October 19 – echoed in these previous weeks of continuous social strike – boomed once again; projecting the student movement well over the pettier category claimances to address the most urgent ones and give a strong leverage to the next dates of mobilization, starting from tomorrow in Susa Valley and Campania and beyond.

 

+++++++++The students’ statement++++++++++

 

15 November: Let’s lay siege to them!

Today hundreds of thousands of students took the streets all over Italy, from Turin to Palermo the student rage made itself be heard by laying siege to the seats of power and blocking the roads of every city.

From the national assembly in Pisa the will of restarting from October 19 emerged, by characterizing this day by recalling the practices of uprising and siege; a lot of V for Vendetta masks paraded bringing the determination of that day into the marches and the occupied schools. Today, to lay siege to the seats of power has not been a mere slogan: a huge number of resolute students took the streets, laying siege to provincial and regional headquarters buildings; police charges and arrests did not stop the determination of the students that, starting from today, will keep occupying other schools.

Among the many cities that demonstrated today, we report some of the many events: in Bologna the students lay siege to the provincial headquarters building and, in spite of the violent charges by the police, their march stays united and ends blocking up the ring road and revamping the occupations. In Turin the march ends beneath the Region after the clashes at the Provincial building and the street blockages in the city. In Palermo over 20.000 students lay siege to the Region and resist the charges, receiving the solidarity of workers and squatters. In Naples a resolute march walks on in the downtown streets, and after the siege against the Environmental Policies Department 3 students were arrested. Many other demonstrations blocked the steerts all over Italy as in Pisa, Cagliari, Cosenza, Massa, etc.

We pretend immediate freedom for the comrades arrested today in Naples, to which we send solidarity from all the cities and the occupied schools. To oppose biocide and policies of environmental devastation is imperative, and we all are standing at the side of the struggling students in Campania. Anyone touching us will be sorry!

Against austerity and the high cost of living, let’s keep mobilizing even after this great day, a part of the path of mobilization that from today starts again even more determined, from the schools and the occupied houses, from the collectives and from the next demonstrations that will invade the squares all over the peninsula.

Starting from tomorrow already we will be in Naples against the biocide and in Susa Valley at the people’s No TAV march, in the occupied schools and in the assemblies of the movement, ready to mobilize again towards new uprisings.  

 

The students of the Studaut network