I dunno about these Greek kids. One of them is murdered by police, and instead of gathering at a local pub notorious for its status as a venue for boneheads, and there maybe listening to some working class punk music played by some working class punk bands — or maybe even wrapping themselves in the national flag and going down to the beach to bash some Lebs — they act like fags and start rioting!
What’s that got to do with punk rock?
Anyway… anarchy is a fag, who gives a shit about some anarchist in Athens, and if Greeks are so interesting to you, move to Greece.
one
Riot erupts in central Athens
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Rioting erupted in central Athens on Saturday night after police reportedly shot and killed a 16-year-old boy.
The violence began when youths in the Exarchia neighborhood of the capital attacked a police car with rocks and firebombs, and one of the officers inside fired a weapon that seriously wounded the teenage boy, witnesses said.
Two Greek TV stations said the youth was rushed to a hospital but died upon arrival.
The news enraged hundreds of youths in the area who began rioting by attacking other police cars with stones and firebombs. Police responded by firing tear gas at the crowd, evacuating some restaurants in the area, and closing several streets to all traffic.
A few hours after the rioting began, the youths appeared to divide into at least three separate groups and there was a lull in the fighting.
At least one teenager was arrested, but no casualties were reported among the rioters or police.
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Riots erupt in Athens after police kill youth
Demetris Nellas
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Hundreds of rioters fought pitched battles with police in two Greek cities Saturday night after an officer shot and killed a 16-year-old in Athens.
Witnesses said the shooting occurred around 9 p.m. when a small group of youths attacked a police patrol car. An officer fired three shots, hitting the youth in the chest.
Police issued a statement saying the patrol car, with two officers inside, was attacked by a group of 30 stone-throwing youths while patrolling the central district of Exarchia. According to the statement, the two officers left their car to confront the rioters
“The two (police officers) maintain that they were attacked again and responded, with one firing a stun grenade and the other, by shooting three times, resulting in the fatal wounding of the minor,” the statement said.
Two Greek TV stations said the young man shot was rushed to a hospital but died upon arrival.
The two officers and the local precinct commander have been suspended pending an investigation, the police statement said.
“The government expresses its profound regret over this incident. An inquiry on the circumstances of the death has already begun and, if the policemen are found to have been derelict in their duty, the punishment will be exemplary,” Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos said in a statement.
The news enraged hundreds of youths in the area who began rioting, attacking other police cars with stones and firebombs. Police responded by firing tear gas at the crowd, evacuating some restaurants in the area, and closing several streets to all traffic.
A few hours after the rioting began, the youths appeared to divide into at least three separate groups and there was a lull in the fighting.
Shortly after midnight, rioting resumed with some protesters marching through the city center and others fighting police nearby. Police fired tear gas, and rioters threw stones and firebombs.
In the northern city of Thessaloniki, dozens of youths attacked a police precinct in the city center and several others have blockaded a road.
At least one teenager was arrested, but no casualties were reported among the rioters or police.
Calls were posted on Web sites for more people to join the protests in the two main cities as well as the city of Iraklio on the island of Crete.
Minor clashes as thousands mark Greek uprising, Elena Becatoros, November 17, 2008 | Greek police repel firebomb attacks during protest, Elena Becatoros, November 17, 2008 | Asylum seekers riot in Athens, The Press Association, December 6, 2008
Aussie anarchy is fag anyway – more Qwerty that Molotov. Couldn’t even sustain a bookshop/stall at the West End market in Brisbane.
Not a single regular hardcopy anarchist publication in the whole country. No anarchist political party with more that 5 members. Anarchists outnumbered by the Raelians on last year’s Labour Day parade in Brisbane.
Far away revolutionary hills are green.
I would hope there are no Anarchist political parties in Australia, with any members. WTF!?!
G’day Peter!
First Nepal, now Australia?
I’m in Melbourne, not Brisbane, so I know only a little about what, if anything, the handful of anarchists in Brisbane get up to. (Well, at least until such time as our London HQ sends me one of its irregular updates.) Nevertheless, I am aware of the existence of an anarchist mail order based outta Brisbane. Well… was! It’s still called Beating Hearts Press, but it’s now south of the border. Until recently (I don’t know when!) you could also explore http://www.brisbaneanarchy.org/ It’s now defunct, it seems (as is the autonomous-brisbane list).
On the other hand, kim kaos has a blog, which is anarchical, and there may be some @s hanging about at 4ZzZ and Ahimsa Haus.
“Not a single regular hardcopy anarchist publication in the whole country” is incorrect. Uncle Joe Toscano publishes a weekly newsletter, and has been doing so for the last 15 years or so. In addition, for the last three years Mutiny — an anarchist group in Sydney consisting of a number of layers of trust and information management — has been publishing a monthly zine. You can read copies online at the Jura Books site.
Outside of Joe’s weekly missives and Mutiny’s monthly meanderings, the only explicitly anarchist publications that I’m aware of are quite sporadic in their appearance.
“No anarchist political party with more than 5 members” is an odd assertion given anarchists’ rather well-known antipathy towards political parties. Perhaps the closest thing to one is another project of Uncle Joe’s. It’s called ‘Direct Democracy Not Parliamentary Rule’:
“…we are a group that wants to register as a political party so that we can generate the attention to advocate the ideas involved with direct democracy. To achieve this we need the 550 people to sign up for membership in the party before the Australian Electoral Commission will place us on the ballot.”
‘Direct Democracy Not Parliamentary Rule’ was officially launched on November 3, 2004. 140 weeks later (June 2008), it had 111 members. It now claims 121: an increase of 10 over the last six months or so.
As I noted earlier:
If by ‘political party’ you mean ‘anarchist organisation’, on the other hand, there are a number of groups with 5 or more members, almost all of which, to the best of my knowledge, are based in Melbourne and Sydney. Aside from a few isolated individuals in other major centres, anarchism has very little visible presence in Australia, and as far as ‘social movements’ go, is absolutely tiny.
“Anarchists outnumbered by the Raelians on last year’s Labour Day parade in Brisbane.”
If you say so: I neither know nor care.
“Far away revolutionary hills are green.”
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
Do patches count as hardcopy publications? We’ve got heaps of those.
Did Chairman Miaow wear patches on his Big March? No.
The state of the Brisbane anarchist movement is strong. There is Ahimsa House with Zapata’s Bookshop, which just the other day opened its anarchist library, the Noam Chomsky Room. There is an active Food Not Bombs movement, strong anarchist consciousness in a few music scenes- including the independent, punk and rap scenes and the Anarchy Show on 4ZZZ enjoys a large listening base. The groups that exist are small, but are effective in the campaigns they involve themselves in. Individually, anarchists are respected members of the communities they are a part of for the work they do in defence of these communities.
It is true only a handful of anarchists participate in the Labour Day march. I do, it’s a lot of fun. But the majority of anarchists here view Labour Day as an ALP-controlled funeral march with red flags, preferring not to march alongside the likes of Kevin Rudd, the Raelians and the Spartacist League.
Wow. That is a pretty strange definition of ‘strong’.
In the Brisbane I live in it seems to me that anarchist circles have suffered from the same atrophy that the ‘Left’ (whether you like that term or not) on the whole has suffered in the absence of real social movements.
Of course that does not invalidate anarchist positions or ideologies.
And my understanding was that the library at Ahimsa house is not an anarchist library per se, even though the main organisers of it are anarchists.
rebel love
Dave
The Ahimsa House library is made up of stuff scammed from deceased CPA members. They’ve got the collected works of Joseph Stalin in pride of place along with loads of books by other great anarchists such as Lenin and Kim Il Sung!
4ZZZ is a joke, only drug-addled hippies volunteer on the station. I heard the news program the other day reading a story which they said was from ROOTERS NEWSAGENCY!
The stoners meant Reuters!
Joe Toscano used to be on night time radio up here in Qld – used to listen to him when I worked nightshift, a harmless sort of lunatic I thought.
“Food not Bombs” I’ve seen a few times in Brisbane and they were well organised – as impressive a group of anarchists as ever I’ve seen.
No sparts in Brisbane – they only fly in for special occasions – always good for a laugh.
Oh, why do you have to ruin an awesome nugget of sectarian gossip (which would have made all the train spotters smile) with a chunk of pure slander!?!
Yay for 4zzz (whether the presenters are stoned or not)!
oz anarchy wishes it was a fag, alas its just a boring bloke blowing smoke up hs own ass.
more rioting fags i say.
Hi if any of you are interested in getting a participant’s view of what’s happening in Athens:
http://www.anarchism.net/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=33811
The posts by the Greek anarchist Deadeye include eyewitness accounts of the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos. The same transcripts along with a youtube clip of the interviews can be found on Royce Christian’s blog:
http://theguerrillacapitalist.wordpress.com/
Harry
Thanks Harry…
Deadeye writes:
one
A patrol car entered Eksarxeia, last Saturday night.
Like I said, they’re instructed to remain in a certain pre-defined route, to avoid anarchist confrontations. (cop cars usually become a moving target for any kind of projectile when they drive by) These two cops are known from past events to challenge anarchists in the district, so this Saturday, they broke in. They bumped into a small group of underaged, some say anarchists, some say kids that were having their typical night-out. It matters not.
The cops were looking for trouble, so the moment they saw the kids, they assumed they were anarchists as it is a popular destination for people of such beliefs, even for entertainment purposes. They provoked those children, while in the cop car and were ousted for being bullies. The cops drove away, but came back on foot a few minutes later to settle the score. They exchanged words, nothing else but words. This is confirmed by numerous eye-witnesses, while mass media and the cops themselves were spreading, unsurprisingly, that the cops were attacked by a large group of enraged and armed anarchists. In the middle of the quarrel, one of the two cops pulled out his pistol and shot a kid dead with two shots, one in the belly and the second one in his heart. They both calmly walked away to their patrol car.
The quarrel was of such a volume, that the incident was filmed by a two kids in a balcony. I uploaded it here and an edited version with more light, here:
You can’t clearly see the whole incident, but the two cops are standing alone in the street and there is no fight. Only a car alarm.
The cop speaks some final words, something that would be roughly translated as, “I’ll show you what”, and fires two shots. They can both be seen walking away.
The incident was first reported in the athenian indymedia, which is typically controlled by anarchists. The news were spread rapidly, causing spontaneous riots all over Greece.
Right now, everyone is enraged. Not only anarchists but every Greek with minimal common sense. A kid was executed for talking back to a cop. It was not out of the blue, it was the product of an ongoing repression that has centered its efforts in the district of Eksarxeia.
Anarchists went on a rampage, myself included. We havent slept many hours, I just came back to rest a bit, wash the tear gas off my face and clothes, sleep a few hours perhaps, before I return to defend the roadblocks.
Excuse me for being incoherent, like I said, I’m tired, furious and my face is burning. I suppose you’ve been told a million lies, so I end this post with a list of anarchist targets, which are strictly political.
-The main target in EVERY Greek city and each district, are the police stations. I have lost count in how many areas they have been bombarded by rocks and molotov cocktails. Every cop in Greece should live in fear the following days to balance their arrogance with fear.
-Banks are the next best target. For a million reasons I need not explain in an anarchist forum.
-Cop cars. Luxurious cars. Civilian cars that belong to cops. (we know their plate numbers), they all made good barricades.
-Every grand store, of any type. Only the big money holders.
-Cameras.
I know it has been reported that small neighbourhood stores have been looted. It’s true to some extent. It’s quite usual for undercover cops to damage such types of property. It’s also usual for hooligans to rush into riots. We bumped into a few of both kinds and chased them with sticks.
I can only speak for what I personally saw. And I saw extremely careful anarchists in what they were smashing and in a manner to avoid the lightest damage on parked cars. However, I can’t deny the fact that there are exceptions.
Ask questions if you like, my mind is too much in a storm right now for accurate descriptions, especially while its still happening.
Peace.
Not.
two
This video contains testimonies of some of the many eye-witnesses.
Here goes.
1st witness
-We saw them at some point, with guns in their hands walking down the street.
-Both of them?
-Both.
-And? Where did they stop?
-Here, right here. They started cussing here, “Come here punks, come and settle this”. Some kids approached.
2nd witness
-During this verbal fight, we saw no objects being thrown, suddenly one of them pulls out his gun and opens fire, straight ahead. We took a careful look and noticed someone on the ground, being dragged away by his friends, probably in fear that he would shoot again. Anyway, this is what happened, the officers were just standing still and then walked away. They turned away and left, on foot.
3rd witness
-I saw the extension of his arms, I saw him aiming. The extension of his arms, not the position of his body. I was behind him. And he aimed. He aimed towards the other end of the street, towards that group.
4th witness
-They were exchanging words. It was intense. Suddenly, without any other intervention, the patrol car abruptly departs and some time later the officers return. They stood in front of the kids and gunshots were heard. One of the kids, fell.
1st witness – resumed.
-3 shots?
-3 shots because he didn’t hit him at first. This man wanted to kill. Simple as that.
5th witness
-We heard two bangs. I immediately understood it was gunfire from the sound of the very first shot. I heard the second shot, followed by a scream and a kid falling to the ground. We headed towards the kid, we dragged him away.
-What did the police do?
-The police turned their backs, as if nothing had happened, and left. We lifted his shirt, he was bleeding. We gave him CPR, the ambulance was late.
6th witness
-I saw the patrol car between Zoodoxou Pigis street and Tzavela street, it left but a minute later, the two drivers came back. They were both armed and they shot that kid, without a reason.
-Did you see them aiming?
-Yes, they were aiming.
-They didn’t shoot up to intimidate?
-No, they shot the kids that were standing there.
-Did they see the kid falling dead?
-Yes, someone shouted that the kid was wounded, but they turned and left.
Those testimonies are a bit useless without knowing what the cops themselves testified.
They claimed they were attacked by a group of 30 hooded anarchists, with rocks, sticks and molotov cocktails, while in the car. They stepped on the gas to evade them, but later returned to arrest them. They were attacked once more and while in self defense, they threw a flashbang grenade, fired two shots in the sky to intimidate the attackers and one in the ground. The last one hit the ground but ricocheted.
They’ve been flipping their story until today. Their first two lawyers have already retired from their case, for ethical reasons. The ballistic examination was completed today. The bullet remained inside the body and it indicated that it came from a higher level (the pistol) to a lower level (the victim’s body). If it was indeed a ricochet, the bullet would have entered from a lower level (the street) to a higher [point], the point of entry in the body.
At first, all media adopted the cop’s case, spreading similar news worldwide.
Now, they talk about murder in cold blood.
Greeks cooperating with local anarchist groups are taking over Greek embassies, all over Europe. Berlin, Hague, London and more that I’m not aware of.
Now, we’re just making sure there won’t be “one minute silence” goodbyes before we return to our daily routine. Alex will have the loudest and most fiery farewell.
Thought I’d send you an update on tonight’s solidarity demonstration in Spain.
At about 8pm, a couple of hundred (poss. over 500) demonstrators gathered in Puerta del Sol, Madrid in solidarity with Greece and then proceeded to march from Sol up C/Carmen to Plaza Callao, stopping outside FNAC and then continuing for one block down Gran Via. The march then turned down C/Montera and stopped outside the Policia Municipal office for 10 minutes or so. I was a little further down from the police station so couldn’t see everything that happened but after the usual chanting of ´asesinos´etc and graffiti being sprayed upon the windows, a group of people managed to smash the front entrance to the station.
You could feel agitation building in the crowd leading up to this, but this triggered a quick dispersal of people racing for the Metro or the safety of the warren streets in La Latina and Lavapies.
I waited around Sol for a while to see if there was any response. It didn’t seem to be major although riot police were now to be seen. I then headed towards Tirso de Molina where the CNT is located. The Northern (I think) end of the Plaza heading down to La Latina had been barricaded and the barricades set alight. No people seemed to be in the streets though and shopkeepers were busy putting fires out in the street. No local business appeared to have been attacked, nor local cars.
On Calle Toledo a branch of the Santander bank had been smashed in and further into La Latina on the street which holds the El Rastro market about six guys were being detained by 10-15 riot police. Apart from this though and the occasional barricade hastily thrown up and small groups of loitering riot police, I couldn’t see anything else happening. I had no camera with me so couldn’t document anything but I’m sure there’ll be news available tomorrow on Madrid Indymedia or the like.
Just thought I’d update you on the action this side of the world.
Salud.
Thanks Luke.
wat the fuck does dressin in flags and goin down to the beach to beat up lebs who wanna claim our country have to do with punk.
fuk man, yr obviously one of those metro sexual faggots with a lil rat tail or some shit, maybe not, but same crap that doesnt know anythin apart from ur britney spears music collection.
learn a lesson fuk wit!!!
…what?
[Blah blah blah. Trolls are silly.]