Greeks students are revolting

‘Arsonists attack Greek police station’
[AP]
International Herald Tribune
March 12, 2007

“ATHENS, Greece: Dozens of youths hurled petrol bombs at a police station near central Athens early Monday, damaging a patrol car and the building’s entrance, authorities said. No one was hurt in the attack in the Zografou area of the capital and no arrests were made. The attackers emerged from a nearby university campus, where police are forbidden to enter under Greek law. Monday’s incident followed riots in central Athens on Thursday, when anarchist youths clashed with police in front of parliament for more than three hours and set fire to a presidential guard post at the city’s tomb of the unknown soldier. Clashes between police and anarchist groups have intensified in recent weeks amid widespread student protests against planned university [sabotage] by the country’s [reactionary] government.”

The law prohibiting the entry of police onto University grounds was introduced following the overthrow of the military junta in 1974, and constitutes one of the lasting legacies of the student revolt that helped end the dictatorship. On November 17, 1973, striking students at the National Technical University of Athens (also known as the Athens’ Polytechnic) barricaded themselves behind the walls of the University. The Greek government, under Georgios Papadopoulos, ordered the army in to crush the occupation, and the army, literally, sent the tanks in, declaring that — like the Mayor of Copenhagen — there would be no negotiations with anarchists. The exact number of persons murdered by the army in the subsequent attack remains disputed, but most sources claims anywhere between dozens and scores of students (and civilians who had gathered at the Polytechnic in support of the students) were killed, while hundreds more were injured and thousands arrested.

In addition to abolishing free education, the current government plans to abolish the right of asylum.

    And what is war, what is needed for success in war, what are the morals of the military world? The object of warfare is murder; the means employed in warfare — spying, treachery, and the encouragement of it, the ruin of a country, the plunders of its inhabitants… trickery and lying, which are called military strategy; the morals of the military class — absence of all independence, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness.

    ~ Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1872

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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