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Anastasia Balezdrova

Athens will commemorate the anniversary of Alexis Grigoropoulos murder with at least 25 processions, 27 more are scheduled in the rest of Greece. The 15-year-old boy was killed by a police bullet on December 6, 2008.

Thousands of students from the Greek capital gathered today at 12 o’clock outside the University building in the city centre to honour the memory of their coeval. The procession headed along to the Parliament. A large group of anarchists mingled with the protesters near Grand Bretagne Hotel on Syntagma Square and threw stones, oranges and smoke bombs against the special riot forces. The police responded with tear gas and the situation calmed down.

The procession was back on the square in front of the University where the demonstrators began to tear pieces of marble and throw them at the opposite building of Eurobank EFG, the windows of which were tightly closed with iron shutters. However, the windows of the office building next door were broken. Hooligans broke the window of a neighboring store and also a glass inscription of the National Bank of Greece, setting garbage bins on fire behind. Banks in central Athens worked only to 13.30 today and due to the metal shutters they resembled bunkers.

The students had commemorative slogans for Alexis Grigoropoulos and shouted: "Cops, pigs, murderers". The procession of anarchist organizations will begin at 16.00 and tonight there will be a vigil at the place of the murder in the district of Exarchia. Over 5000 policemen are guarding the centre of Athens today; the traffic on main streets and boulevards is stopped until tomorrow morning.

Further details will be submitted later.