Carabinieri and police entered the Crotone classical high school to collect information on the number of students who would participate in the procession planned for the general strike on 30 October. The accesses occurred at the Pitagora classical high school. On the afternoon of 27 October – according to what we learned – the military personnel showed up while the elections of the representatives of the parents’ institute were taking place. The police asked to speak to the school director, who was absent at the time of the visits. According to what emerged, the military motivated their presence to propose initiatives on legality to the institute, taking the opportunity to request the numbers of the mobilization for the sole purpose of managing the event with serenity, excluding any intent of “profiling”. On the morning of October 28, still at the classical high school, two uniformed police officers arrived. The visit was confirmed by ATA teachers and staff; also in this case they were asked to speak to the manager who, however, was busy elsewhere. It seems that the administrative employees were asked how many children would demonstrate. The police commissioner Renato Panvino specified that he had not taken any initiative in this sense and ruled out the existence of ongoing investigations that could justify the police action in the high school. Furthermore, no law enforcement officer spoke directly with the students, who were engaged in voting operations to elect their school representatives on October 27th.
Piccolotti (Avs): “A very serious and unacceptable intimidation”
«We learned something crazy a little while ago from the local press: in Crotone the carabinieri showed up at the Pitagora classical high school, and at least two other schools in the Calabrian city, looking for the names of those who will participate in the strike on October 30th. We are faced with very serious and unacceptable intimidation.” This was stated in a note by Elisabetta Piccolotti of Avs. “Schools – continues the deputy – are places of training and freedom, they are not preventive control facilities. Asking school representatives who will demonstrate, in the absence of the school director, is a police state method. The government now systematically responds to dissent with repression. What does it have to say about it? We want to know who gave the order, the minister should clarify immediately”.