University mulling private security to avert violence
Academics at Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University are reportedly planning to employ private security guards to keep order at the institution following a series of outbreaks of violence, widely blamed on non-students, as well as introducing stricter rules for functions held on the premises.
According to sources, the senate of the university is keen to move forward with an initiative, mooted several times before in the past, to use a private security firm to police the campus.
The civil servants currently employed as guards are believed to lack the training to handle nighttime raids or outbreaks of violence usually attributed to leftist protesters who are not affiliated with student unions.
Meanwhile, the university’s management is also reportedly planning to tighten controls on the organization of events on campus, which are often hijacked by outsiders. Among other things, a new code of conduct would oblige event organizers to repair any damage.
