Despite court ruling, students remain at USP.
The group maintained its occupation of the University of São Paulo's administration building on Friday morning, a move that began on October 1st; a decision by the São Paulo court yesterday ordered the immediate evacuation of the premises.
Marli Moreira
Reporter from Agência Brasil
São Paulo - Despite the fact that the São Paulo court ordered yesterday (4) the immediate evacuation of the administration building of the University of São Paulo (USP), on the Cidade Universitária campus, in the Butantã neighborhood, in the west of the city of São Paulo, a group of students maintained this morning (5) the occupation that began on October 1st.
When analyzing the request from the USP (University of São Paulo) administration for repossession, Judge Xavier de Aquino classified the students' behavior during the occupation process as "extremely serious" due to the damage caused to property and also the harm to students who wish to continue their academic activities.
"This is an extremely serious case that has been hindering the smooth operation of the University of São Paulo, since its staff are being forced to work from another address on campus because there are law-abiding students who do not belong to this group and wish to continue their classes," the judge stated in his ruling.
According to the director of the Central Student Directory (DCE), Gustavo Rego, "this decision surprised us because we are in the middle of a negotiation process, and even because we closed an agreement on the 31st with some achievements, we already had an indication of a peaceful exit." He informed that there will be an assembly tomorrow (6) at 18 pm to ratify the agreement.
The student leader also expressed the expectation that there would be no mobilization of police to forcibly remove the students by then. The main reason for the occupation was to pressure the São Paulo state government to change the process for selecting the rector, vice-rector, and unit directors by implementing direct elections.
According to Gustavo, the DCE will defend at tomorrow's assembly (6) that this fight can be resumed during the congress of students, teachers and staff in general at USP, scheduled for the first half of May 2014.
Through a note published on its website, the DCE expressed its repudiation of the judicial decision, recalling that the Court had twice denied the request for repossession made by the university administration. In the statement, the entity affirmed that if the intention of the university administration and the Court is not to wait for the assembly's decision tomorrow (6) using forced removal, "the students will not hesitate to resist what will be yet another demonstration of truculence and authoritarianism on the part of the university administration and the State government".
Edited by: Valéria Aguiar