Anastasia Balezdrova
Molotov cocktails, fires in bins, war with stones, tear and asphyxiating gases and stun grenades. This is how the centre of Athens looked like the last 12 hours. According to the police information, 25 people were captured and taken to the Central Police Station to verify their data and to specify whether they were involved in the clashes with the special police forces.
The riots began shortly after 03:30 pm near the University when youths set fire to bins, broke a public phone and a few stops and started throwing broken pieces of marble at the police officers who were there. They built barricades with the bins within a few minutes and threw Molotov cocktails and other objects at the police officers who ‘responded’ with stun grenades and stifling and tear gas. These scenes were repeated several times, the youths shouting "Cops, pigs, killers" and other slogans against the police.
Then most of the demonstrators went down to Omonia Square and then went up Stadiu Avenue to get to the Parliament building under the watchful eyes of the riot forces. Some demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails at the special riot forces which were around the Monument of the Unknown Soldier on Syntagma Square. Serious clashes, however, started after 06:00 pm when the majority of the procession left the area around the Parliament and went to the building of the University. The youths threw Molotov cocktails, stones and other objects at the police again who used tear gas to disperse them. During the clashes were destroyed telephone booths, bus stops and an ad kiosk on Korai Square was burned.
A woman participating in the procession fainted away during the first clashes, most likely suffocated by the gases despite the initial information that she was hit by light rocket. The staff of the ambulance, which arrived very quickly, helped her and there was no need to transport the woman to a hospital.
The student procession in memory of Alexis Grigoropoulos who was tragically killed two years ago began shortly before one o'clock in the afternoon in front of the Athens University. Pupils and their teachers began to gather early in the area where representatives of leftist organizations and even book sellers from the Marxist bookstore in Athens had settled. Pupils’ texts were heard from the loud-speakers which expressed their discontent with the police that killed the 15-year-old boy, but also with the severe economic measures of the government, the Memorandum for financial support and the IMF. A team of riot forces got closer to the assembled people and thereby caused a reaction of a group of youths who threw stones at the policemen who stepped back and watched from a distance.
While waiting for the procession to start and in the sounds of popular rap bands singing about anger and protests a small group of pupils began to pick oranges from the trees in front of the National Library and threw them at the opposite bank and office buildings. Dissatisfied that the fruits just hit the windows some demonstrators broke off marble slabs of the building of the library and smashed them into small pieces. They managed to break the windows on the first floor of an office building with them. Some of the organizers tried to stop them, but failed and then the procession went along.
Impressive crowd of over 3000 participants walked down the Panepistimiou Avenue, turned at Omonia Square, and then moved along Stadiu Avenue to Syntagma Square and the Parliament. Then the first vandalism began. Youths with covered faces set fire to several bins, broke 2-3 windows and damaged bus stops and bank boards. Traders had closed the shop windows with metal shutters before and the banks in the city centre worked until 01:30 pm. When the procession got to Syntagma Square the demonstrators continued to throw oranges - this time at the policemen who guarded the Ministry of Finance.
Tensions escalated near the central hotel Grand Bretagne where a group of anarchists mixed with the protesters and threw stones, oranges and smoke bombs at the special riot forces. The police responded with tear gas and the situation calmed down. The demonstrators gradually pulled back to the building of the university where students dispersed and some even played football on the empty Panepistimiou Avenue, while anarchists began to gather down the street for their procession which ended with arrests.
Then the tension shifted to the Eksarhia neighbourhood where most of the participants in the afternoon processions gathered. There vigil was to be held on the place where Alexis Grigoropoulos was killed. Meanwhile a group of students were in front of the Parliament and held a kind of war with oranges with the police officers and the traffic on the boulevard was already allowed.
Protest demonstrations were held in the central streets of Thessaloniki and in several regional centres in Greece. Unknown persons with covered faces broke two branches of the National Bank of Greece in the city of Iraklio on Crete with large hammers. Demonstrators in the town of Hania threw stones and wounded a policeman in the neck, causing damages to parked cars. Eight people were arrested there too.
This day actually was in memory of the 15-year-old pupil Alexis Grigoropoulos who died two years ago from a police bullet in the Athens neighbourhood of Eksarhia. There were unheard protests in Athens that began literally hours after his assassination. Several government buildings were burned and many damages were caused during the processions and the passive response of the police allowed some to indulge in outright stores looting in downtown Athens.
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