Some 500 protesters broke through a front gate and entered a vocational school campus in northwest Greece at the center of controversy over the past month due to allegations of hazing against a young man who eventually took his own life.

The protest came days after the body of Vangelis Giakoumakis was found some 800 meters from the dairy production school outside the city of Ioannina, and a day after the 20-year-old’s funeral in his native Cretan village.

Riot police watched from a distance as protesters expressed anger at the student body at the school over the hazing allegations, termed as “bullying” in Greece, while also charging that the death was not suicide but homicide.

Earlier, students at the school issued a statement warning against the demonization of anyone based on hearsay and rumors.

While first citing the great grief felt by the young man’s co-students and staff at the school, the written statement went on to state that “… we, as students, will not replace the work of the justice system by ‘condemning’ anyone. We call for the same stance to be shown by every well-meaning and sensitive person that wants to declare their solidarity, and not to easily believe every bit of ‘information’.”

Students who signed the statement said a number of people enrolled at the school have become targets of threats and verbal abuse in the wake of Yiakoumakis’ disappearance and especially in the wake of the discovery of his body. They also called for a responsible stance by mass media, and the avoidance of “trial by media” or “trial via the Internet”.