Protest

Tensions in the higher education sector escalated on Thursday as hundreds of administrative staff from Athens University protesting their induction into a civil service mobility scheme said they would stop working in a bid to prove that the cutbacks would leave the institution unable to operate.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide by Thursday whether the Finance Ministry will be able to temporarily ignore a ruling from a lower court ordering it to rehire some 400 sacked cleaners.

The ministry is seeking a temporary suspension of last month’s First Instance Court decision, which ruled that the government was wrong to dismiss the workers as part of public sector reforms.

Last year, on this very day, hundreds of thousands of Turkish people hit the streets to protest the security forces’ brutal crackdown on environmentalist activists’ peaceful protest against the government’s plans to demolish a symbolic park, Gezi Park, at Istanbul’s historically important Taksim Square.

There was only minor disruption at almost 570 secondary schools that opened ahead of schedule on Wednesday especially so pupils could make up the class hours they lost as a result of sit-in protests in the autumn.

Workers in the state and private sector are to walk off the job on Wednesday, disrupting public services and some modes of transport on the first general strike of the year against austerity.

One month after the escalation of the largest protests seen in Bosnia in two decades, hundreds of people are still taking to the streets of Sarajevo, Mostar, Zenica and other towns each day.

Heavy police forces in Sarajevo secured the streets and prevented the protesters of blocking the main crossroads on Friday.