“Is Ayuso doing something for us? I think not”, affirms the best student of Information Sciences in the act with the president

The screams and insults that the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, receives this Tuesday at the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University no longer resonate.

The students, trade unionists and demonstrators who, due to police controls, are unable to gather at the doors of the building in protest at the granting of the title of illustrious student to the conservative leader, are already out on the streets.

It already seems that everything is over, when Ayuso discovers that she has only just begun.

Because the award ceremony for the best students and distinguished alumni begins, and in it, Elisa Lozano Triviño, from Audiovisual Communication and the best student of the 2021-2022 promotion of the faculty, speaks on behalf of the students with extraordinary prize.

"I don't want this award at all," starts his speech to everyone's surprise.

“What good is it to me?” he asks.

"I don't know who has decided that I am the best in the promotion, I suppose the same person who has decided to give Mrs. Ayuso an award here today," she continues.

"I'm sick of

.

The Complutense is incredible.

My classmates are the ones who are out there demonstrating and the teachers, who are the ones in class, teaching us, ”he says about the protests against Ayuso.

"Is she doing something for us, Mrs. Ayuso?

I think not, ”she wonders and answers.

“Today is a very sad day, because when I say Ayuso I hear applause.

Who do I want to applaud?

To my real teachers and the real Complutense.

Today is a day of mourning, ”she continues.

And she concludes: "Ayuso, pepera, the illustrious are out."

Intervention by Elisa Lozano Triviño, during the act. LaPresse (LAGENCIA)

Isabel Díaz Ayuso listens seated to the speech prior to the award granted to her as an Illustrious Student at the Complutense.LaPresse (LAGENCIA)

A university worker discusses with some students who were holding a banner in favor of Ayuso, during the act in which the president of the Community of Madrid received the distinction as Illustrious Alumna of the Complutense. Alejandro Martínez Vélez (Europa Press)

Several students hold a banner in support of President Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Alejandro Martínez Vélez (Europa Press)

Students protest against the fact that the president of the Community of Madrid has received the distinction as Illustrious Student of the Complutense. Alejandro Martínez Vélez (Europa Press)

Ayuso leaves the faculty after the act, this Tuesday. Ricardo Rubio (Europa Press)

Several students try to cover a banner in favor of the president of the Community of Madrid. Ricardo Rubio (Europa Press)

The Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, surrounded by journalists, leaves the faculty.ZIPI ARAGON (EFE)

Demonstration against Ayuso in the vicinity of the Complutense University, on January 24, 2023.Santi Burgos

Police officers before the students who protest at the gates of the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid.ZIPI ARAGON (EFE)

A woman with a sign that reads: 'De cañas al Zendal' during the rally against the distinction of the president of the Community of Madrid as an Illustrious Alumna of the Complutense, this Tuesday. Alejandro Martínez Vélez (Europa Press)

A man with a sign that reads: 'Ayuso kills the elderly' during the rally against the distinction of the president of the Community of Madrid as an Illustrious Student of the Complutense, in the vicinity of the Complutense University, on March 24. January 2023. Alejandro Martínez Vélez - Eur (Europa Press)

Several people with a banner that reads: 'Out with Ayuso' during the rally held against the appointment of Ayuso in the Complutense, this Tuesday. Alejandro Martínez Vélez (Europa Press)

Protests before the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University, where the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who completed her journalism career there, receives recognition as an illustrious student on Tuesday. Eduardo Oyana (EFE)

While Lozano speaks, the audience responds with shouts and applause, almost all in favor of the president.

Ayuso remains impassive, the procession goes inside.

He knows that the PP has done everything possible to cover her with like-minded students from the university and that for now it is time to shut up.

The first to speak from the podium in his defense is the journalist Ángel Expósito, also an award-winner.

“It makes me a little sad to arrive at my faculty, at the

, between police vans, having to enter with a QR code, does not seem logical to me ”, he laments about the security device that tries to prevent the unauthorized protest called by various student groups and unions.

"Having to claim respect, education, freedom and plurality I don't like at all, I thought we had already overcome that," he adds.

"Those who deserve to be illustrious students are public workers", launches the actor Antonio de la Torre, another of the winners along with Ayuso, Expósito, the journalist Almudena Ariza, the writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte, the photographer Miguel Trillo and the professionals of the

and advertising Rafa Antón and Xurxo Torres.

"Out with the fascists of the university"

Then comes Ayuso's turn.

“I did not ask to be a person chosen [for the distinction].

I recently read that groups were being organized that wanted to prevent me from receiving this recognition and from participating freely in this act ”, he describes.

"I have come to read threats," he stresses.

“But, again, I have defended being one more.

I defend a public university for everyone”, he says.

“Few places should be as plural and an example of coexistence as the university”, he insists.

"In addition, everyone, me too, has the obligation and responsibility to defend coexistence in the largest university in Spain, everyone's."

An hour and a half before, when Ayuso arrives at the faculty, the opposite occurs.

A storm of shouting for and against breaks out.

"Fascists out of the university!" chant hundreds of students crowded against the security cordon that prevents them from accessing the assembly hall.

Immediately, Ignacio Dancausa, president of the New Generations of the PP in Madrid and the right eye of the baroness, climbs up a wall and begins to answer along with dozens of colleagues.

“Out with communists from the university!

Liberty!

The one who doesn't bounce is a communist!” they shout.

The thunderous dialogue continues for long minutes in which the atmosphere heats up, as happens an hour and a half later, already at the exit.

There are suffocating moments.

tumultuous.

Pushing, shouting, and people who stumble risking falling to the ground.

The worst moments coincide with the arrival and departure of Ayuso, who is surrounded by a group of collaborators, and an important security device that acts without regard: as if they were a rugby team, they push, hit and hit with elbows and shoulders to make way.

Because they have to break through.

A swarm of cameras and protesters crowd around him, for and against.

The atmosphere is more than tense.

Dangerous.

Little by little, Ayuso's supporters are prevailing, because they are better organized and are professionals in activism, although no one really knows what they do in that faculty, or how they have overcome the strict entry controls without being Information Science students. or if the explanation is that they are guests of the Government of the Community of Madrid.

They justify that they are also Complutense students, and show their student cards.

"¡Viva España!" they yell while clapping.

“Absolute majority!” they insist, as if the results of the next regional and municipal elections on May 28th depended on their lungs.

"You can tell, you feel it, Ayuso president!", rumbles against the cement of the building's walls, without anyone having yet stepped on the red carpet reserved for the authorities.

"Ayuso murderess", is heard on the side of the opponents.

Many of those present then twist their faces, alarmed by what is happening.

01:43

Students protest against the appointment of Díaz Ayuso as an illustrious student of the Complutense University of Madrid

The students of the Complutense University of Madrid demonstrate this Thursday. Photo: SANTI BURGOS |

Video: EPV

Little by little, the voices critical of Ayuso die, overwhelmed by the unbalanced pulse, although periodically they start shouting again, and come to prevail.

At the start of the day they are fewer for one reason: an impressive police deployment prevents the protest concentration, which had not been communicated to the Government Delegation, nor therefore authorized, from reaching the doors of the faculty from the first hour.

Due to the deployment, the protest, in which dozens of students participate, is held between ten in the morning and half past twelve at the Ciudad Universitaria metro exit and not in front of the faculty building, as planned.

Thirteen agents surround the concentration in front and on the side of the pavement, while three police vans watch it on the side of the road.

Another nine vans are concentrated along the Avenida de la Complutense.

The protesters carry drums, trumpets, colored smoke canisters, flags and banners of all sizes.

"Ayuso resigns, the uni does not admit you" or "illustrious and precarious are the health facilities" chant those present, the majority students, but also members of other groups such as Marifé Montoro, retired and mother of one of the teachers who have promoted a collection of signatures against the award to Ayuso, which collected 1,500 supports.

“I love the university, I have been a student at the university for the elderly and it seems incredible that the rector would do this, for a person who does nothing for the public.

What is it for?” criticizes Montoro.

The president of the Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, after receiving the title of illustrious student. Alejandro Martínez (Europa Press)

A group of Fine Arts students hand out cardboard with Ayuso's face screen-printed in blue, along with the words

and the phrase "out of the public, now!"

Others do the same with signs that read "resignation" and "no!".

Rubén Burgos, 25 years old and a student of the Master of Sociology at the Complutense, shouts along with his classmates: "Help, listen, the uni is fighting."

For him, as for many of those gathered, the protest goes beyond the appointment of the president.

“This is for health, for the precarious conditions of the university, for education.

A fight for public services, that sums up what happened today [for this Tuesday]”.

"It is shameful.

As a former Complutense Medicine student, I do not understand why they name the person responsible for the death of more than 7,000 people in the residences, the closure of extra-hospital emergencies or the chaos in primary school," laments Ana Encinas, a 62-year-old doctor Primary Care at a health center in Carabanchel, shortly before giving a brief speech to those present.

Students, university administrators, teachers and health workers have joined a kind of open micro organized spontaneously around half past eleven.

“It is dangerous that the president of the Community denies the scientific evidence.

Either she doesn't know or disregards to justify inaction.

No American university would reward Donald Trump”, says Ana Negredo, 55, a professor of Geophysics at the Complutense.

It happens throughout the morning of Tuesday: a distinction decided by the Complutense in 2019 transforms the faculty for a few hours into the summary of the polarized Spain that faces the super electoral year of 2023.

You can't pass without a card

At nine in the morning, a long queue with dozens of students occupies part of Avenida de la Complutense.

The reason is not the protest itself, but the police controls to access the Faculty of Information Sciences.

There are two police filters, one shortly after leaving the Ciudad Universitaria metro stop - a few students were handing out leaflets with a caricature of the president on the stairs - and another before crossing the fence to enter the building.

Both tolls could only be avoided by those who presented the student card, physically, from the Complutense, where the name of the faculty should appear, if not, nothing, you could not pass.

The faculty had informed that, "for security reasons", it would be "essential to present the UCM card" to access the campus until 1:00 p.m., as well as other access restrictions from the cafeteria and from the entrance to the Moncloa palace.

But some had not found out about the requirement and have been left out.

“But I do have the DNI and if you want I can show you the registration number”, a student complained.

“All this for a woman who dismantles public education.

Incredible,” said a second.

Others resigned themselves and turned around.

Most have had to wait between 15 minutes and half an hour to access the venue.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, 11 National Police vans guarded the avenue.

Many of the students wondered why they have not canceled classes, like when they awarded the distinction to Queen Letizia.

"So no one would have come to the rally" or "Is this why I got up at six?"

were some of the phrases that were repeated in the groups of students who have not been able to go to class.