Takeover of the University of Helsinki | Tensions increase at the university: Students refuse to leave Sauli Niinistö's path

City|Takeover of the University of Helsinki

The occupants have been told to leave because of the seminar. President Sauli Niinistö will speak at the seminar, among others.

Helsinki the university announced on Wednesday that it plans to evict the students who took over the university. The reason for the eviction is a seminar organized at the university, where the president will speak Sauli Niinistö and former Minister of Defense of Sweden Peter Hultqvist.

According to the website of the National Defense Course Association, the event is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. The students are ordered to leave by 9 a.m. in the morning.

The occupation, which started on Tuesday of last week, opposes the government’s cut measures and immigration policy.

of HS of the reporter present Pipsa Sinkko-Westerholmin according to twenty minutes before nine, there were about a hundred people at the university, and more were coming. At five minutes to nine, the students were moving into the university’s main hall.

Before half past ten, there were already an estimated 300-400 people there, and more were constantly arriving.

One of the organizers of the takeover, political science student and chairman of Left Youth Pinja Vuorinensaid before nine that the students are not going to leave the place.

Pinja Vuorinen in the lower lobby of the main building on Thursday morning. Picture: Kalle Koponen / HS

Education student Wilhelm Blomberg told HS that he was surprised by how many people were there on Thursday morning.

“It’s sensitizing that there are so many people there,” he said.

Blomberg described the university takeover as “the most important national student movement since the takeovers of the 1960s”. Power-ups have not only been organized at the University of Helsinki, but nationwide.

Before nine, Blomberg also instructed the international students in English on how they should act if the police arrive to arrest people.

On Thursday morning, students waited for a possible eviction in the university’s main building. In the middle, Wilhelm Blomberg guides the students. Picture: Kalle Koponen / HS

Before Ten takers negotiated the situation with the representatives of the university. The representative was coming at 10:30, said Pinja Vuorinen.

According to Vuorinen, the university would have agreed that the protesters can stay in some premises at the university. However, they should take away, among other things, banners and other items related to the occupation.

According to Sinkko-Westerholm, the students were informed about the university’s message in front of the university, and the students discussed the plans in groups. The university was said to have postponed the order to leave until 11 o’clock.

The general atmosphere at the university was enthusiastic: people shouted “the university belongs to us” in Finnish and English and sang Finlandia in a chorus.