![]() ![]() The end of the junta cleared the way for Greece's entry to the European Union. The Greek tradition of direct action - and a kind of anarchic, street-level political response - has been ingrained in the national psyche since the 1970s, when students helped topple the US-supported military dictatorship known as the "Regime of Colonels". ![]() During the general strike on Wednesday, public transport ground to a standstill and the airports were forced to close. Since Saturday, more than 200 people have been arrested and half as many have been treated for injuries. As fires broke out in the streets and tear gas seeped under doors, making it as hard to breathe indoors as out, residents admitted that things had never been so bad. A neighbourhood long known as a haunt of the Athenian left-wing intelligentsia, favoured by artists, writers, publishers and firebrand lawyers, it has its darker side too - a charm dampened by angry teen rebels, nihilist anarchists and, of course, urban drug users.Īs a long-time resident, Dina Kiriakidou, reported in a blog this week, Exarchia is not for the faint-hearted. What is extraordinary is the unexcited, even jaded, verbal response of the kids who shot it. The footage shows police cars screaming in the darkness, sirens, silhouettes of young people on a street below and then, two, clear gunshots. Greece needs to change and people are the only ones who can make it."Įxarchia is not a suburb unfamiliar with extremes, shown by the short, grainy video taken from a flat window on the night of Alexandros's shooting. ![]() protests are spreading because people around the world share the same feelings. ![]() In the past 48 hours, an echo of youth fury - fuelled by evocative YouTube tributes and a number of Facebook pages, one of which has collected more than 120,000 members - has reverberated across Europe, with outbreaks of violent protest in nations as far afield as Turkey, Denmark, Italy and Britain.Ĭostas Papanikolau, one of the creators of a Facebook tribute site, told the Herald he was not a friend of Alexandros: "I didn't know him. One journalist suffered head injuries after being hit by a rock, while police made 52 detentions and 15 arrests.Greece has been paralysed by a six-day maelstrom of riots and strikes, which have resulted in €1 billion ($2 million) in property damage, hundreds of arrests, the closure of schools, banks, universities and businesses. Attacks by groups of hooded rioters hurling rocks and petrol bombs at riot police, predominantly in the areas surrounding the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair complex. Groups of hooded protesters and riot police also played cat and mouse in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, with violent clashes late into the night on two main fronts. The rioters overturned trash bins and set them alight as they hurled petrol bombs and rocks at riot police," said Euronews correspondent Mihalis Arampatzoglou. "Exarchia, the district where Alexandros Grigoropoulos was murdered was turned again into a battlefield. Groups of hooded youths set up blockades with rubbish bins in several streets around the Athens Polytechnic and some were set alight, while another group of anti-establishment protesters broke into the entrance of an apartment building housing Culture Ministry offices on Spirou Trikoupi Street and climbed onto the roof terrace. Two water cannon trucks were also present on the streets of Athens to help clear blockades in Exarchia and disperse rioters.Ī balcony of an apartment in a building on Tositsa Street also caught fire, but was swiftly extinguished by the emergency services. ![]()
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