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Athens Greece: Cops murder a 16 year old

I had to leave earlier from the demo.... I am sure there are still a lot going on but could not stand there any longer I had big breathing problems... I have to trash my mask for sure, it did not help at all....

I am 30 years old, I have been to a number of demos but what happened today is out of any imagination..... I have NEVER seen something like this. NEVER. This is not the usual riot against riot police this is a BIG PUBLIC OUTRAGE. 15000 people on the streets tonight and HUDGE number of them participating on the riots. EVERYTHING IS BURNED. COMPLETELY. From the beggining of the demo, in Omonia, up to near the Greek parliament building (about 3 km) EVERYTHING got destroyed... I left after this point I had to walk for miles in order to get out of the city centre because there was nothing working, no tube, nothng...There is not a single bank, shop, or anything that remained undamaged.... The police responce was big, a LOT of chemicals, I am sure some "new" ones as well as I have a different "feeling" than on other days and also a lot of plastic bullets. A lot of people injured because of them. At a point a group of policemen had a girl down and were hitting her visiously. Others were hitting midle aged people that were on the demo. I did see policemen THROWING THINGS IN SHOPS AND STORES... Especially if those items WERE ON FIRE.

I am speaking to people on the phone now... in the department of Law of the university of Athens there are people trapped inside... The police are outside and are throwing chemicals INSIDE the buidling from the windows... It is a building with a lot of floors and one big stairway that connects them.... I suppose that the most people are trying to go to the top floors in order to avoid the chemicals as much as possible.

What is happening now in Greece is pretty similar to what happened in France in the riots there... The murder of Alexandros was the trigger for what is happening now and what will happen during the next days because I find it impossible to believe that all this will just stop now.

I will try to come back later with more I need to go to find a pharmacy now to find whatever it will make me feel a bit better.
 
Everything will be done by the mainstream media now to paint the victims as the aggressors. But we all know why that is so.

Take care.
 
derf said:
So we have two men in a car.

They are in a rough area.




They are confrunted.

Police issued a statement after the shooting, saying a patrol car with two officers inside was attacked by about 30 youths throwing stones.


So we have a situation where two men are attacked by 30.

Given that a petrol bomb is a lethal weapon I don't see the problem with the cop shoting the little twat.
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we've got to start ignoring thse little plonkers , they're runing all over the board - it's a shame , I never come accross these sorts in real life , would be much more interesting , but here it's just dull
 
Dimitris said:
I had to leave earlier from the demo.... I am sure there are still a lot going on but could not stand there any longer I had big breathing problems... I have to trash my mask for sure, it did not help at all....

I am 30 years old, I have been to a number of demos but what happened today is out of any imagination..... I have NEVER seen something like this. NEVER. This is not the usual riot against riot police this is a BIG PUBLIC OUTRAGE. 15000 people on the streets tonight and HUDGE number of them participating on the riots. EVERYTHING IS BURNED. COMPLETELY. From the beggining of the demo, in Omonia, up to near the Greek parliament building (about 3 km) EVERYTHING got destroyed... I left after this point I had to walk for miles in order to get out of the city centre because there was nothing working, no tube, nothng...There is not a single bank, shop, or anything that remained undamaged.... The police responce was big, a LOT of chemicals, I am sure some "new" ones as well as I have a different "feeling" than on other days and also a lot of plastic bullets. A lot of people injured because of them. At a point a group of policemen had a girl down and were hitting her visiously. Others were hitting midle aged people that were on the demo. I did see policemen THROWING THINGS IN SHOPS AND STORES... Especially if those items WERE ON FIRE.

I am speaking to people on the phone now... in the department of Law of the university of Athens there are people trapped inside... The police are outside and are throwing chemicals INSIDE the buidling from the windows... It is a building with a lot of floors and one big stairway that connects them.... I suppose that the most people are trying to go to the top floors in order to avoid the chemicals as much as possible.

What is happening now in Greece is pretty similar to what happened in France in the riots there... The murder of Alexandros was the trigger for what is happening now and what will happen during the next days because I find it impossible to believe that all this will just stop now.

I will try to come back later with more I need to go to find a pharmacy now to find whatever it will make me feel a bit better.
Click to expand...

amazing reports Dimitris- the govt are about to introd. a state of emergency it seems, though they say the army are "not " going to be activated ...sounds ominous
 
I promised you a more detailed post yesterday but could not, I was too tired and not feeling well... Although I was appearing online on the boards I was in bed. Anyway ....


Lets go a bit backwards before saying what happened last night.

On Sunday afternoon, while there were demos and riots on the streets of Athens, people on greek indymedia were discussing that on Monday schools should not work. That the pupils should take over the schools and then go on the streets of their towns and demonstrate. One guy thought and wrote an "SMS message" and posted it on the site. Within no time that message appeared on all over the net.. Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, also on MSN messangers and yahoo, various forums, everywhere... School kids started sending this SMS to their friends, these friends to others and so on... Within hours a hudge number of school kids from all over Greece had this SMS and were discussing between themselves of what would happen on next day...

Monday morning and the schools in all over Greece are not working. The school kids are there, but they have taken over the buildings and do not allow any classes to start. In the most of the cases their teachers were with them and started organizing them for the demonstrations. Within a few hours thousands of school kids in every town, even in very small towns around Greece, were out on the streets protesting. Their teachers were with them, trying to control the kids and being sure that noone else comes in the demo in order to create trouble. The kids were ungry because of what happened... A young teenager, one of them, whas shot dead by a cop 2 days ago... In a lot of towns the kids started throwing stones against the police, in some occassions they even attacked police departments ! ... Police responded with chemicals and violence.... In Athens a clash between the school demo and RIOT police started. Police were throwing chemicals in the demo, the pupils were trying to escape as they had not lived such an experience before. On one incident a group of policemen had down a 12 YEAR OLD GIRL and were hitting her on her head, on her body.... People gathered there and tried to stop the police or actively or were shouting to them..

Apart from these incidents that were not that many you could generally say that the school demos were peacefull.


A Demo had been called also for 6 yesterday afternoon... The one I attended as well. Nommater the fact that all these demos during the last 3 days are happening on short notice, of course they were not planned but are happening because of the event, a big crowd turns up. When I reached the anarchist bloc, near Omonia square, thousands and thousands were allready there and more were coming. More than 15000 protestors appeared on that demo. We were 2 anarchist blocs, a big one (I was in that one) and also an another smaller but really hardcore and crazy. Even from that point, on the beggining they tried to burn a .. kiosk (why I am still wondering) but were prevented by us... The whole situation really quickly turned crazy though, in no time a bank in Omonia square was on fire and other riots started. A shop in that square, sells swords and traditional guns, but also new ones... The shop was destroyed and the guns, swords etc were LOOTED. I have heard that a load of them was later found throw away at Panepistimiou avenue, but noone knows if these were all or that there are still people with guns on them. The demo started going towards Propylaia and then to Syntagma square, the building of the greek parliament and then continued further down. IN ALL THE WAY riots were taking place between police, the anarchist blocs, but also on other points of the demo... A LOT OF BLOCKS were actively participating on riots with police. A massive ammount of chemicals was thrown, as I said yesterday these are "special" chemicals and also rubber bullets were fired. EVERYTHING WAS GETTING BURNED. COMPLETELY The fire brigade reports that 22 BUILDINGS (not just the shops but the WHOLE buildings) were burned. The shops that "survived" and were not set on fire they WERE SET ON FIRE BY RIOT POLICE. Yes, police was picking up objects from the streets and were throwing them inside the stores, I am an eye witness to that. The reasons are of course obvious, their goal was to create even more chaos and people property to get destroyed, so then the public will turn against the demos rather than in favour. The broken stores were then looted by people mostly by immigrants. Mobile phones, jewlerry, televisions even meat from a buchers shop was looted ....The tube stations were closed by police, by closing the gates down. IN ONE STATION THOUGH PEOPLE WERE TRAPPED INSIDE. No matter that they were calling for help the police was not opening the gates, they would all suffocate in there. WE broke the gates and let the people free.... The demo after a point broke, it was not possible for the blocks to keep their formation. A lot from the left blocks started leaving as they could not stand this any more. This is when I left as well as I could hardly breath.

After the end of the demo there was tention in 2 different areas. People had squated the Polytechnic buidling near Exarchia and was fighting with the police from there. Also others got in the Law Deparment building of the University of Athens and were trapped in there as the police was throwing chemicals in the building. Up to 2 o clock in the night when I finally slept I had communication with people from inside the polytechnic buidling... they were not that many but were creating continiously trouble with the police.

This was the most violent demo ever, at least as far as I know. Some older ones compare it wil the violent incidents on 1967 just before the military junta started... It is difficult to really compare then though, we are talking for completely different demos on completely different times...

If you look at the threads that I have started on the boards here, you will also find threads about the demos against the education law and reports from the riots then. The riots even then were big, police violence was outrageous, but the public was not so violent as yesterday....

There is anger, there is a lot of concentrated anger everywhere. With who ever you talk, just ordinary people, you see it. A lot of people understand these demos during the last 3 days because they can understand the anger from the people....

2 student demos have been organized for today in Athens. I am not going to attend today, but I will be in Athens centre again on Wednesday for the workers demo. It has not been postponed but changed, the worker unions have finally called for a meeting in Syntagma square but with no demo. I am sure that a lot of people will be down ready for a demo though, no matter what they unions say.

The government had an urgent meeting yesterday in order to discuss about the situation. The prime minister today is visiting the President of Democracy, as well as meeting with the presidents of the other political parties. A lot of us believe that he is trying to call Greece in a "state of emergency" although the government officially denies it. If they do, the army may be on the streets then.....

The media even from yesterday started their "work". Hooligans, drug addicts, anarchists with full faces destroying Athens for no reason, they are even coming up with conspiracy theories that we are "controlled" by the opposition etc... The opposition political parties are trying to capitalize the public's anger in their own favour. NOBODY of course is speaking of the police violence within these few days... What the police are doing especially yesterday is out of any imagination.... People could easilly be killed yesterday.

More than 100 even more than 150 people were detained by police, around 80 are finally arrested the rest are released. It is difficult to say what is the correct number unfortunately... A lot of people got injured yesterday, some badly, I have no idea of how many though...

Athens indymedia was down all night yesterday because of heavy traffic so I have not found photos from yesterday... if they will be posted I will post them here.

A small conclusion of all the above.... we live in a "democratic" junta.

THE STATE AND THE BOSSES ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS
 
000111.jpg
 
The execution of 15 year schoolboy Alexandros Grigoropoulos by Greek police is nothing short of appalling. It is regretable, but perhaps understandable, that the blatant and callous murder of an innocent child by an agent of the state in this way would generate a lot of anger that sadly escalates out of control.

It's clear that against a backdrop of economic/climatic turmoil, increasing disequity of wealth distribution, declining cross-class cohesion, social alienation and sense of community and the disintegration of the traditional welfare state, a state attack upon one individual within a highly networked and politically active community, can have an incredibly amplified effect and repercussions.

I expect once the initial anger has dissipated, the riots will, eventually, subside.

In the meantime we should all pray and light a candle for Alexandros and that peace, justice and fairness returns to Greece and the cradle of democracy. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, and the Greek people, at this difficult time.
 
A lot of shops & stores being burned & along with them a lot of jobs. Don't see why they smash up small businesses....unless they just want the fun of trashing things....then who knows what % of the crowd is doing this?

In my town, whenever there was an ant-war demo or something, a small bunch of "anarchists" would always try to fight & provoke the cops. They are assholes. They draw media attention from the real demo & give the right ammo. They have no cause, just want the fun of tearing stuff up.

Hard to know what to believe yet. This thing has lit a powder keg ready to explode over a bad economy & gov corruption.
 
TomUS said:
A lot of shops & stores being burned & along with them a lot of jobs. Don't see why they smash up small businesses....unless they just want the fun of trashing things....then who knows what % of the crowd is doing this?

In my town, whenever there was an ant-war demo or something, a small bunch of "anarchists" would always try to fight & provoke the cops. They are assholes. They draw media attention from the real demo & give the right ammo. They have no cause, just want the fun of tearing stuff up.

Hard to know what to believe yet. This thing has lit a powder keg ready to explode over a bad economy & gov corruption.
Click to expand...

the "bunch of anarchists" aint small here tom, and it looks like it's banks / car dealerships , multin nat. brands getting hit up first and foremost .
 
TomUS said:
A lot of shops & stores being burned & along with them a lot of jobs. Don't see why they smash up small businesses....unless they just want the fun of trashing things....then who knows what % of the crowd is doing this?

In my town, whenever there was an ant-war demo or something, a small bunch of "anarchists" would always try to fight & provoke the cops. They are assholes. They draw media attention from the real demo & give the right ammo. They have no cause, just want the fun of tearing stuff up.

Hard to know what to believe yet. This thing has lit a powder keg ready to explode over a bad economy & gov corruption.
Click to expand...

You could start by reading up on the Greek junta (1967-75) and the US role in the coup that brought them to power. The post WWII period is also revealing, since Britain and the US both fought to destroy leftism in Greece. (The left was due to take power with a popular mandate until the US/UK had other ideas...the same thing happened in postwar Italy too).
 
cantsin said:
the "bunch of anarchists" aint small here tom, and it looks like it's banks / car dealerships , multin nat. brands getting hit up first and foremost .
Click to expand...
Mmm, it's worth bearing in mind Dimitris' report that some cops have been spotted burning small shops themselves, presumably in an attempt to make the rioters look bad. Not outside the realms of possiblity, given the reputation and history of the Greek police.
 
I thought this photo from Athens says an awful lot more about what is going on in Greece than the shooting of a young boy....

Gallery-Riots-in-Athens-A-010.jpg
 
articul8 said:
What role (if any) are the organised groups to PASOK's left playing eg. Syriza ?
Click to expand...

For those that do not know SYRIZA is a left coalition of various small political groups and movements. An this point they are the 3rd political party behind PASOK (social democrats) which is the 2nd. Our government is right wing conservative (New Democracy).

SYRIZA has a block in the demos as well as other left political groups and parties like MERA, ENANTIA (SWP) etc. They dont actively as a block take place in riots but you may see members from them to confront the police. As I have allready explained what happens on the streets of Athens is not just a clash between anarchists and police, but between a big part of the demonstrators and the police. You may even see people, who do not really belong on any group to throw stones against policemen.

Our government as well as other rightwing and far right parties (like LAOS) are actively trying to involve SYRIZA with the demos and the riots, saying that on purpose they let anarchists to be within syriza blocks, but also that some of the parties that are in syriza, are "revolutionary" parties who take place in riots etc. It is STUPID to suggest that us, as anarchists, we wait some parliamentary party to "control" our actions in the demos... If this debate takes place on the TV news, is because SYRIZA are good to capitalize public acceptance from such situations and their rates are rizing, something that the others dont like.

Quickly some news from today. School kids demos were taking place again in athens today, as well in nearly all cities and towns of Greece. In athens, the police ATTACKED the kids (anyone watching the live coverage from TV could easily see that) and their parents and teachers who were on the demo were begging the police to stop hitting the children.

On 15:00 o clock was the funeral of Alexandros. A lot of people attended the funeral, after the end riots started with the police on the near by roads of the cemetery. Riots are also taking place as we speak, near the Polytechnic buidling again. A bit earlier, police was firing with their guns on the air, in order to terrorize the demonstrators. I will come back later with a more detailed post.
 
Odd, noticed the Greek stock market was actually up at one point. Probably something to do with the fact that cold-hearted, bottom-line capitalism is often enamoured of such scenes of destruction, which actually increases GDP and stimulates economic growth.
 
Photos of the bullets and the cops firing can be found here

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=937475

If it works as athens indymedia is still having a lot of problems.

If you go back on this thread you will see the video of the time of the murder, on a post by Stella.

The greek media have CHANGED this video now, they have cut off the voice of the girl that is filming and they have added noizes that sounds like people shouting and things getting broken just before the shot... In this way they create an scenery in which the gathered youth were damaging the area therefore the policemen had to stop them and fired...

There is a big debate on the greek media if the shot got directly to Alexandros or if it bounced from a wall ... The bullet was found on his body damaged, and this could be done if the bullet bounced somewhere or if it hit a bone.... The answer will come after some more results to see if there is material on the bullet that could come from a wall (fragments of paint or cement or whatever). Even though nothing really changes, the fact still remains that the cop fired low enough and not at the air.. Shooting low at an alley like that one even if you are not aiming at the people themselves can still be dangerous for them... Legaly nothing changes, they will get to the court for murder, but it changes the whole "image" of them to the public ....

As I have allready told you the worker unions have changed their plans for tomorrow and instead of a demo there will be a gathering at Syntagma square. A lot of political groups though have decided not to follow this and keep on calling for a demo instead. Therefore tomorrow in Athens 2 "events" will be taking place on the same time, a demo and the worker union's boring speeches at Syntagma square.

I have concentrated my posts mainly to Athens but I should inform you that demos and riots are taking place and on a lot of other cities and towns around Greece. In Thessaloniki especially the situation is pretty similar to Athens. In Patras, far right nationalists members of Golden Dawn, got on the streets and TOGETHER with the police were attacking and even ARRESTING demonstrators. There is info for one person wounded by a knife but is not really confirmed yet.

I was not at any demos etc today so I was watching the news on various TV channels.. They are actively trying and I can say they have managed to shift the public's interest from the murder and police brutality to the damages because of the riots. Videos of the destroyed shops, interviews with the shopowners, various politicians talking about "hooligans", and so on... No mention of the fact that even POLICEMEN were destroying shops, no mention of the fact also that "anarchists" were suddently appearing from BEHIND police lines (!!!) they were destroying shops and then runing back behind the police (!!!)...

Goebfwai I have not really looked at stock market during the last few days, the fact is though that greek stock market has decreased ENORMOUSLY since the start of the global financial crisis. Even if it was a bit up today, it is much lower than it should be, as economists etc say.
 
Dimitris, how much support do the far right have in greece? are they a big problem over there?

stay safe - and LOOK AFTER YOURSELF! xxx
 
frogwoman said:
Dimitris, how much support do the far right have in greece? are they a big problem over there?

stay safe - and LOOK AFTER YOURSELF! xxx
Click to expand...

If you read up on greek recent history, especially the civil war (1945-49) you will see that there were 2 main guerilla fighting groups... a far right one and a communist one. Depending on which area of Greece we are talking about, people were supporting the far right or the left groups. Therefore, traditionally, you can say that there are areas and towns in Greece that are more right wing or more left wing. The far right military junta, (1967-1974) increased even more then tention between them. Quite enough years have passed since then, but all this history still has an impact on people here and their acceptance of the facts. People that are now voting for right wing parties, for example for New Democracy (our active government) maybe be more far right minded than the political party itself but they vote for that anyway. A few years ago, a new party came in, with the name LAOS. It is basically a coalition of other smaller right and far right political parties, some of them were nearly vanished before LAOS but they found "shelter" there... LAOS managed quite easily to get the appropriate percentage and be in the parliament as we now speak.... You could easilly compare it with BNP.

Golden Dawn is a far right group, basically Neo Nazi. They are a small group with not much acceptance, but the fact that LAOS exists boosts their moral as they can find support from there. The youth of LAOS, called FOS, are in a lot of occassions also members of Golden Dawn (Xrisi Avgi).

In Patras, XA members from a lot of different areas of Greece gathered in order to fight against the demonstrators. Patras is not a target for a first time for them, as it is mainly a left city. A lot of greeks still remember the murder of Temponeras, by fascists, in Patras, back on 1991 (I think 91). He was a school teacher, who was together with the pupils on the school squats that had taken place during that time because of a crazy educational reform of the same government (New Democracy)...

I hope I answered :p
 
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