The 21 year-old, who is from a wealthy prominent family, has been on hunger strike since November 10th after he was refused a furlough to attend classes at a technical university he was accepted to. It should be reminded that Romanos is serving a sentence for a bank robbery.
In Parliament it was announced that Evangelos Venizelos is going to compose an amendment, in cooperation with the Ministries of Justice and Education, in order to offer unsuccessful applicants the option of "distance learning".
Demonstrations of solidarity to Romanos were organized for Tuesday night but they turned very ugly. The solidarity march in down town Athens, which attracted more than 6,000 protesters ended in clashes with the riot Police in the area of Exarchia.
His case also received support from the main opposition Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) youth party, the ultra-leftist Antarsya party and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).
Protesters overturned cars, and set the downtown area ablaze including a public bus.
Protesters also set barricades on several streets around the Athens Polytechnic University which is now occupied and riot police used teargas and flash bangs to disperse the crowd.
Initial reports claim that some 15 people were detained.
On Wednesday morning, a group of about 50 students occupied the central building where the administration of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is housed and announced that the occupation of the university building was in solidarity to the hunger strike of Nikos Romanos.
In the meantime, anarchists arranged a demonstration outside the university’s School of Philosophy at 11am, followed by a protest at the square in Kallithea at 5pm.
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