Update : Greek government promises action against ‘hoodies’
[AP]
International Herald Tribune
March 18, 2009
ATHENS, Greece: Greece’s government said Wednesday it wants to give police the power to arrest demonstrators who wear hoods or masks. The goal would be to reduce public violence that followed major riots late last year, the government said. Justice Ministry officials said the draft legislation would be submitted to parliament in the next few weeks. Greece was rocked by riots in December following the fatal shooting by police of a 15-year-old boy. Since then, violence by anarchist groups and attacks by far-left militants have generated a debate on policing and privacy rules in a country traditionally tolerant of public demonstrations. But attacks by local anarchist groups on government property and other targets considered symbols of capitalism have become increasingly common in Athens. The central Athens office of a conservative lawmaker was targeted in an arson attack, damaging the entrance but causing no injuries, police said late Wednesday. The lawmaker, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is the son of a former conservative prime minister and brother of Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis. On Friday, anarchist youths wearing hoods and wielding axes and sledgehammers attacked an upscale Athens shopping area, damaging more than 60 stores. “What happened on Friday was the last straw. This cannot continue any longer,” conservative parliamentary spokesman Panos Panayiotopoulos said Wednesday. “It must end now. This means something has to be done: measures must be taken and those measures have to be effective.” Opposition parties criticized the proposal as an attempt to distract public attention from inadequate policing. “For goodness sake, do you really think this kind of measure will solve the problem?” senior Socialist official Evangelos Venizelos told parliament. The government has promised to reorganize parts of the police force, with help from London police, following the December riots. Many conservative lawmakers are calling for a review of a ban on police entering university campuses — where rioters often take refuge — and broad restrictions regarding the use of surveillance cameras.
Gosh: those Greeks know how to have a good time.
Hot on the heels of burning the Athens headquarters of neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Golden Dawn’ to the ground earlier in the month, a counter-protest in the Greek city of Ioannina against a fascist rally has resulted in a number of fascists requiring hospitalisation. Greek fascists, like those belonging to Golden Dawn, have for years been working in close collaboration with Greek police in order to repress political dissent, but they have been especially helpful in the recent period (Epaminondas Korkoneas, the police officer who shot Andreas (Alexandros) Grigoropoulos to death, is a former member of ‘Golden Dawn’).
The uprisings of December have quietened down, but the levels of social unrest appear to remain higher post-December than prior. As a result, Greek authorities have turned to Scotland Yard for expert advice on how to quell dissent, in addition to introducing new laws and organising new para-military units.
Antifascist protesters march and smash neo-Nazi expansionist stunt in Ioannina, NW Greece
taxikipali
libcom.org
March 16, 2009
A fascist expansionist stunt smashed by protesters in Ioannina, marking yet another low ebb of nationalist bigotry.
In the evening of Saturday 14/3 a big antifascist protest march took to the streets of the city of Ioannina in NW Greece against the fascist laying of wreaths at the memorial stele of an ancient local statesman. The fascist annual public stunt organised and attended by members of the neonazi organisation Golden Dawn [Xrysi Avgi], known for its murderous attacks against leftists, anarchists and immigrants, whose leader has been exposed as a secret service [EYP] agent by the daily Eleftherotypia, provoked the public sentiment of the old city by claiming Greek sovereignty over south Albania, an area identified by the fascists as “North Epirus”. The protest march attacked the fascist gathering and thwarted its members, many of who had to be hospitalised with serious injuries. Despite the intervention of the riot-police, who in the past has provided protection for the neonazis, and extended use of tear gas, there have been no arrests or wounded amongst the antifascist protesters, and the march withdrew orderly with no damage done to property…
Anti-fascist protests end in riots, neo-nazi headquarters torched to the ground in Athens
taxikipali
libcom.org
March 6, 2009
Protest marches in response to the fascist-parastate hand-grenade attack against the Immigrants’ Social Centre in Athens erupt in riots seeing neo-Nazi national offices burned.
Riots broke out twice during the last week, both times in during protest marches against the fascist-parastate attack against the Immigrants’ Social Center in Exarcheia with a hand-grenade on the 24th of February. During the first march two days after the attack, anarchist protesters detached themselves from the main body of the demo to attack the HQs of Apogevmatini, an ultra-conservative daily making consistent attacks on social and labour movements, whose editor in chief, Momferatos, had been executed by N17 guerrillas in the mid 80s, for his cooperation with the CIA during and after the colonels’ junta.
The much larger protest march that took to the streets of Athens on Thursday 5/3 erupted in extended street battles between protesters and provocative riot police forces attacked the demo. During the clashes that spread throughout the city centre several banks and expensive shops were destroyed, while protesters broke into the offices of Golden Dawn [Xrysi Avgi] the neonazi parastate organisation responsible for numerous assassination attempts against immigrants, anarchists and the left, as well as a campaign of terror against radical infrastructures. The offices were torched to the ground…
New repressive and legislative measures aim to create state of siege for the Greek capital
taxikipali
libcom.org
March 17, 2009
After holding meetings with the Scotland Yard as well as American security advisers, the frail Greek government with only one MP majority has announced the imposition of draconian measures aimed to halt the rising social antagonistic movement across the country. With the support of the corporate media, the government has announced it will not tolerate any more political violence on the streets, giving a carte blanche to the regime’s praetorian guard, as the ex-Minister of Public Order, Byron Polidoras, has called the riot police, to exercise unlimited force on demonstrators. In addition, the government has announced the formation of a rapid reaction force of 300 armed policemen mounted on fast motorbikes to patrol the heart of the Athens and the introduction of police dogs in pedestrian patrols. The Minister of Justice has also announced the introduction of a new law that will severely punish hoods, masks and other feature distorting clothing in protest marches. The corporate press has been ahistorically using the term “koukouloforos”, i.e. hooded man, to refer to anarchists and other radicals, trying to identify the social movement with the hooded Nazi collaborators of the German occupation in the 1940s, a tactic of psychological warfare endorsed by the Communist Party [KKE]. The corporate media, which are fanning the fears of conservative sections of the population with talk of an impeding civil war, have also been supporting the government and its allies to the far-right in their attempt to open up the issue of the university asylum, a clause in Greece’s Constitution. Earlier attempts to that cause were thwarted by the huge student movement in 2006-2007.
Left wing and independent media as well as a wide spectrum of the social movement have condemned the measures as a police state rehearsal aimed to impose a stage of siege in Athens and to repress social and labour struggles, pointing out that the State’s priority should be the dissolution of the neonazi parastate, the immediate release of the imprisoned insurgents of December, and that policemen should be disarmed (several thousands of them were estimated yesterday as unfit for carrying weapons) and be forced to wear numbers indicating their identity, something that does not happen today.
The new measures are expected to rise rather than dampen social tension, especially as the government has lately proved its propensity towards totalitarianism, amongst other things by appointing the old propaganda chief of the colonels’ junta as director of the state archives, thus placing the future of both academic and independent research at the hands of one of the darkest figures of recent Greek history. The current government is run by the Nea Dimokratia Party, the immediate successor of the junta and a transformation of the post civil war royalist party that filled the islands with concentration camps for communists in the 1950s.
See also : The Crazy World of the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei (February 16, 2009) | Athens policeman accidentally hit by ricochet (January 6, 2009) | Merry Crassmas and a Happy New Fear // “You leftist pig cop!” (December 27, 2008)
Other good sources of infos include:
Center For Strategic Anarchy
NEA από όλο τον Κόσμο : “The objectivity of the presentation of news is almost impossible. So I simply reproduce what others say, and that seems to be quite effective. A continuous «collage» of news or “arpakola / paste-copy” .. with a few comments of mine .. ”
Greece unrest (libcom.org)
On the Greek Riots (Occupied London)
tapes gone loose : fiery the angels fell from the spires of my fortress of youth
Teacher Dude’s Grill and BBQ: Random thoughts on teaching EFL/ESL and living in Greece : monkey business in thessaloniki
See also:
French youth fear police violence along Greek pattern (December 20)
Athens, New York… Melbourne (December 19)
December 20, 2008 : International Day of Action Against Murder by the State (Melbourne) (December 18)
“Stop watching, get out onto the streets” // “Free everyone who has been arrested” (December 17)
Vents : ‘Class War’ (December 16)
Melbourne protest at killing of Alexandros [Andreas] Grigoropoulos, December 13, 2008 | Greece : You. can’t. stop. the music. (December 15)
Meanwhile, in Europe, ¡anarcholocos! (December 14)
Failure to communicate : Epaminondas Korkoneas in court | Greece : Still the One (December 12)
Greece Is The Word | Dancing lessons (December 11)
Greek neo-Nazis join forces with Greek police (again) | The police murder of Andreas Grigoropoulos | The more it stays the same, the less it changes | The Kids are Alright (December 10)
Greek kids continue to disrespect authority | Latuff on the murder of Andreas Grigoropoulos | Shattered spectacles (December 9)
OMG. Gang Storms London Greek Embassy! | …and on the third day, they rioted again… | Andreas (Alexandros) Grigoropoulos ( December 8 )
Anarchy is a dead Greek fag! (December 7)
