Riots in 2 Greek cities after teen killed

[samanthajane13]

By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer – 47 mins ago



ATHENS, Greece – Hundreds of youths angered by the fatal police shooting of a teenager rampaged through Greece's two largest cities for a second day Sunday in some of the worst rioting the country has seen in years.

Gangs smashed stores, torched cars and erected burning barricades in the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki. Riot police clashed with groups of mostly self-styled anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks and bottles. Clouds of tear gas hung in the air, sending passers-by scurrying for cover.

Rioting in several cities, including Hania in Crete and cities in northern Greece, began within hours of the death Saturday night of a 15-year-old shot by police in Exarchia. The downtown Athens district of bars, music clubs and restaurants is seen as the anarchists' home base.

Soon stores, banks and cars were ablaze.

The rioting was some of the most severe Greece has seen in years. The last time a teenager was killed in a police shooting — during a demonstration in 1985 — it sparked weeks of rioting. In 1999, a visit to Greece by then U.S. President Bill Clinton sparked violent demonstrations in Athens that left stores smashed and burned.

The two officers involved in Saturday's shooting have been arrested and charged, one with premeditated manslaughter and the illegal use of a weapon, and the other as an accomplice. They are to appear before a court Wednesday. They and the Exarchia precinct police chief have been suspended.

Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos, whose offer to resign was rejected Sunday, has promised a thorough investigation.

"It is inconceivable for there not to be punishment when a person loses their life, particularly when it is a child," he said. "The taking of life is something that is not excusable in a democracy."

Police said the two officers involved claimed they were attacked by a group of youths and, when they confronted the youths, one fired three shots and the other threw a stun grenade.

Violence broke out again Sunday afternoon in Athens and Thessaloniki during demonstrations to protest the shooting. "Cops, pigs, murderers," protesters chanted.

Police said 24 policemen were injured in Athens in overnight riots that started Saturday, and another 13 on Sunday, while seven people were arrested and another 15 were detained.

As night fell, groups of youths, some masked and others wearing motorcycle helmets, set trash cans alight and overturned cars to erect burning barricades on streets around the Athens Polytechnic — which, like all universities, is protected by law from police intrusion. Some could be seen walking on the roof of the Polytechnic, taunting police.

Violence in the capital began to die down late Sunday, after several hours of running battles between police and rioters. In Thessaloniki, a large fire could be seen burning at the city's university.

A blurry video shot by a bystander that purportedly shows the shooting Saturday has been aired on Greek television and posted on the Internet. Two sounds that could be gunshots can be heard, but the image is too blurry and distant to show the events clearly.

Greece has seen frequent and sometimes violent demonstrations recently against the increasingly unpopular conservative government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. The opposition Socialists are now consistently ahead in opinion polls.

Dozens of stores in central Athens went up in flames or saw their storefronts smashed. At least two buildings were destroyed by fire, as was a Ford car dealership. Streets were littered with chunks of paving stones and rocks thrown at riot police, as well as shattered glass from storefronts and banks.

"I understand the anger and the right to demonstrate it," Pavlopoulos said Sunday night. "What is inconceivable is the raw violence that undermines social peace and turns against the property of innocent people."

Violence often breaks out between riot police and anarchists during demonstrations in Greece. Anarchist groups are also blamed for late-night firebombings of targets such as banks and diplomatic vehicles.

The self-styled anarchist movement partly has its roots in the resistance to Greece's 1967-74 military dictatorship. The youths tend to espouse general anti-capitalist and antiestablishment principles, and have long-running animosity toward the police.

____

Associated Press writers Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki and Dimitris Nellas in Athens contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081207/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer – 13 mins ago



ATHENS, Greece – Thousands of youths enraged by the fatal police shooting of a teenager rampaged through cities across Greece on Monday, attacking police stations, firebombing stores and battling with authorities in a third day of massive riots.

The killing Saturday of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a police officer in Athens' often volatile Exarchia district has led to the worst widespread rioting Greece has seen in decades.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose increasingly unpopular government has already faced a growing number of sometimes violent demonstrations in recent months, has called for calm.

But clashes between police and gangs of protesting youths spread across the country, from the northern city of Thessaloniki to the cities of Hania and Irakleion on the southern island of Crete.

Burning barricades stretched across streets in the capital Athens. And as night fell, gangs again torched stores and smashed bank branches in the city center, and clashes broke out in the streets near Parliament. Clouds of tear gas spread over the capital's central square as passers-by ran for cover. Nearby, thousands of demonstrators gathered for separate protests organized by two left-wing parties.

Gangs rampaged through Athens' upscale Kolonaki district, torching cars and smashing windows, including those of the American Hellenic Union, an education charity, as they went. Masked youths tried to smash a fire engine attempting to put out a fire.

In Athens alone, about 130 businesses were damaged in the weekend riots, many on the popular Ermou pedestrian shopping street and extending to the Monastiraki district. Five stores, including a multi-story sports clothing store and a Ford car dealership, were gutted by fire. Many more were damaged on Monday.

"This was a show of strength by mindless people. ... At some point someone has to tell us who will pay for all this damage," said Athens Traders Association head Panayis Karellas.

The circumstances surrounding the teenager's death Saturday are unclear, but the two officers involved have been arrested; one has been charged with murder and the other as an accomplice. A coroner's report shows the boy was shot in the chest. Schools were to shut on Tuesday in mourning, while staff at universities declared a three-day strike.

"All the dangerous and unacceptable events that occurred because of the emotions that followed the tragic incident cannot and will not be tolerated," the prime minister said in a live televised address Monday morning. "The state will protect society."

The last time a teenager was killed in a police shooting in Greece — during a demonstration in 1985 — it sparked weeks of rioting. In 1999, a visit by U.S. President Bill Clinton sparked violent demonstrations in Athens that left stores smashed and burned.

In an outpouring of rage, high school and university students join self-styled anarchists in throwing everything from fruit and coins to rocks and Molotov cocktails at police. For two nights, barricades of burning cars and trash cans blocked streets, with masked youths hurling rocks in battles against police.

"Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" protesters screamed at riot police.

Abroad, demonstrators raised banners at the Greek Embassy in London and the black-and-red anarchist flag at the Greek consulate in Berlin.

Karamanlis' governing conservatives have a razor-thin majority of one seat in the 300-member Parliament. His increasingly unpopular government has been rocked by financial scandals and has recently faced frequent and sometimes violent demonstrations to protest economic reforms. The opposition Socialists are now consistently ahead in opinion polls for the first time in eight years.

The scenes of destruction replayed across the country are likely to further dent the government's popularity.

With the global financial crisis hitting Greek consumers, shop owners worried the violence would further dent consumer confidence.

"It comes at a time when we have been trying so hard to establish a Christmas spirit in the market," said Vassilis Krokidis, head of the Piraeus Traders' Association. "...Our challenge remains getting through the economic crisis and saving the jobs of those who work in regular businesses."

Although there is little support for street violence or wanton destruction of property, there is a deep well of tolerance for demonstrations in Greece, where the right to protest is held dear.

The Police Officers' Association has apologized to the boy's family, and President Karolos Papoulias sent a telegram to his parents expressing his condolences.

Violence often breaks out between riot police and anarchists during demonstrations in Greece. Anarchist groups are also blamed for late-night firebombings of targets such as banks and diplomatic vehicles. The attacks rarely cause injuries.

The self-styled anarchist movement partly traces its roots in the resistance to Greece's 1967-74 military dictatorship. The youths tend to espouse general anti-capitalist and antiestablishment principles, and have long-running animosity toward the police.

____

Associated Press writers Nicholas Paphitis, Derek Gatopoulos and Demetris Nellas in Athens, and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081208/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

Rioters rampage for 3rd day in main Greek cities
By ELENA BECATOROS and DEREK GATOPOULOS, Associated Press Writers Elena Becatoros And Derek Gatopoulos, Associated Press Writers – 1 min ago



ATHENS, Greece – Gangs of youths smashed their way through central Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities into the early hours Tuesday, torching stores, buildings and cars in a third day of mayhem after the fatal police shooting of a teenager.

In the country's worst rioting in decades, dozens of shops, banks and luxury hotels had their windows smashed as youths fought running battles with riot police. Black smoke rose above the city center, mingling with clouds of tear gas. Broken glass littered the streets.

Hundreds of high school and university students joined self-styled anarchists in throwing everything from fruit and coins to rocks and Molotov cocktails at police and attacked police stations throughout the day. Police said some rioters were armed with crossbows, knives and swords.

"Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" protesters screamed at riot police.

Police said early Tuesday that 89 people had been arrested in Athens for attacking police officers, vandalism and looting and 79 more were being questioned about possible involvement in the rioting. The fire service said it responded to more than 200 blazes in central Athens on Monday, about half of them in buildings and the rest in cars and trash bins used as barricades.

Officials said violence eased early Tuesday, although some clashes continued in central Athens, dozens of masked youths were said to be holed up in a university building in the city center, but Greece bars police from entering university grounds.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who has already faced a growing number of sometimes violent demonstrations, held an emergency Cabinet meeting Monday night.

"All the dangerous and unacceptable events that occurred because of the emotions that followed the tragic incident cannot and will not be tolerated," Karamanlis said in a live televised address Monday. "The state will protect society."

But his calls for calm went unheeded. The widely televised scenes of destruction were a new blow to an increasingly unpopular conservative government that has been rocked by financial scandals and retains a razor-thin majority of just one seat in the 300-member Parliament.

"In the streets today, a whole generation mourns," George Papandreou, leader of the opposition socialists, said in calling for a peaceful demonstration in Athens on Tuesday to protest "against state violence, against violence towards our fellow people."

Amid the riots, about 10,000 protesters from the Communist Party of Greece and another left-wing party marched through the center of Athens to protest the teenager's death.

Rioting raged in about a dozen cities, from Thessaloniki in the north to cities in Crete and the holiday island of Corfu. In Athens, rioters burned the capital's huge Christmas tree in central Syntagma Square. As the hooded youths moved on, some protesters posed for photos in front of the blaze, and others sang the Greek version of "Oh Christmas Tree."

The windows of two of Athens' luxury hotels, the Athens Plaza and the Grande Bretagne on Syntagma Square, were smashed. A hotel guard at the Athens Plaza said its guests had been evacuated.

A lone man with a bucket of water struggled to extinguish a fire in the ground floor of the Foreign Ministry, opposite Parliament.

The four-story Olympic Airways office building in central Athens was completely burned as were a Greek bank and dozens of other stores on Athens' central streets.

Rioters set up burning barricades across downtown streets.

Scenes of destruction also unfolded in Thessaloniki, where hundreds of masked and hooded youths hurled rocks and molotov cocktails at storefronts and riot police, who responded with tear gas.

The fire departments of both cities rushed to respond to dozens of fires. In Athens, rioters surrounded a small fire truck as it tried to extinguish a blaze, smashing the truck's windows before setting it alight.

Elsewhere, rioters looted a store selling hunting weapons and swords.

Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos described the riots as "unacceptable" but insisted police were responding as well as they could to the widespread destruction to property.

"Not a single life is in danger. ... That is very important," Pavlopoulos said after the two-hour emergency Cabinet meeting. "Human life is top priority. Property comes next."

"Under no circumstances will the government tolerate what is happening," he said.

Riots first erupted across the country Saturday after 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was fatally shot by a police officer in Athens' often volatile Exarchia district.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting were unclear, but the two officers involved were arrested. One was charged with murder and the other as an accomplice. A coroner's report said the youth was shot in the chest.

The funeral was set for Tuesday afternoon. Schools were to shut Tuesday in mourning, while staff at universities declared a three-day strike.

The Police Officers' Association has apologized to the boy's family, and President Karolos Papoulias sent a telegram to his parents expressing his condolences.

Abroad, demonstrators raised banners at the Greek Embassy in London and the black-and-red anarchist flag at the Greek consulate in Berlin.

With the global financial crisis hitting Greek consumers, shop owners worried the violence would hurt consumer confidence.

"It comes at a time when we have been trying so hard to establish a Christmas spirit in the market," said Vassilis Krokidis, head of the Piraeus Traders' Association. "Our challenge remains getting through the economic crisis and saving the jobs of those who work in regular businesses."

One assistant at a china shop that was attacked and ruined said rioters didn't think about ordinary people like her.

"Nobody seems to care about the employees at the burnt shops, what will their fate be now over the Christmas season?" said the woman, who gave her name only as Eleni.

Although there is little public support for street violence or wanton destruction of property, there is a deep well of tolerance for demonstrations in Greece, where the right to protest is held dear.

Violence often breaks out between riot police and anarchists during demonstrations. Anarchist groups are also blamed for late-night firebombings of targets such as banks and diplomatic vehicles. The attacks rarely cause injuries.

The self-styled anarchist movement partly traces its roots in the resistance to Greece's 1967-74 military dictatorship. The youths tend to espouse general anti-capitalist and antiestablishment principles, and have long-running animosity toward the police.

___

Associated Press writers Nicholas Paphitis and Demetris Nellas in Athens and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

Violence breaks out during Greek teen's funeral
By DEREK GATOPOULOS, Associated Press Writer Derek Gatopoulos, Associated Press Writer – 29 mins ago



ATHENS, Greece – Rioters rampaged in Greek cities for a fourth day Tuesday in an explosion of rage that was triggered by the weekend police killing of a teenager — but has spread to an array of antiestablishment parties, threatening to topple the government at a time of deep anxiety over growing economic gloom.

Gangs of angry youth have looted and damaged hundreds of buildings, including banks and hotels, torched cars and shut down much of downtown Athens. On Tuesday, police fired tear gas at protesters after the dead teenager, 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, was buried in a funeral attended by about 6,000 people.

Overnight, gangs of marauding masked youths roamed the streets, erecting burning barricades and pelting riot police with rocks and bottles.

High school students joined self-styled anarchists — a group with a history of nighttime arson attacks on businesses and cash machines. But the protests also drew in a variety of left-wing groups, most of whom did not participate in the destruction.

Opposition Socialist leader George Papandreou called for early elections, charging that the governing Conservatives were incapable of defending the public from rioters.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is clinging to a single seat majority in the 300-member Parliament, meaning that just one defection would likely bring him down and spark elections that polls suggest the opposition would handily win.

The riots erupted at a time when the government is already facing public discontent over the state of the economy, the poor job prospects of students and a series of financial scandals that have badly rattled public confidence. However, the protesters have not articulated specific policy goals and the two leading parties are not far apart on the issues.

Greece is heavily dependent on tourism, which could decline as a result of the global economic crisis. It is, however, protected by its membership in the Euro-zone, meaning that it does not face a currency collapse like the one that engulfed Iceland.

Greece was torn by years of civil war between communists and right-wing nationalists in the wake of World War II, and was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974.

A student uprising succeeded in ending military rule but also left a legacy of activism and simmering tensions between the security establishment and a phalanx of deeply entrenched leftist groups that often protest against globalization and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The groups have now evolved into various mainly youth factions that claim to fight trends ranging from globalization to police surveillance cameras.

Karamanlis, who came to power in March 2004, has faced growing opposition and occasionally violent demonstrations over unpopular reforms to the country's pension system, privatization and the loosening of state control of higher education, which many students oppose because they feel it will undermine their degrees.

But even if the Socialists came to power, they would likely find themselves implementing many of the same reforms which are essential if the economy is to progress.

On Tuesday, police fired tear gas to dispel dozens of youths throwing stones and sticks and setting trash cans on fire near the funeral for Grigoropoulos, whose death Saturday sparked the rioting. Dozens of local residents gathered on the streets, shouting at police to stop firing gas in the residential area.

The clashes were less severe than the rioting over the past three nights.

Schools and universities across Greece were closed on the day of the funeral and hundreds of teachers, university lecturers and students rallied in central Athens, where hundreds of teenagers threw rocks and scuffled with officers. Fighting also continued in Thessaloniki.

"Everyone has let our children down ... Every day I see that students are becoming more hostile toward us and figures of authority," said Christos Kittas, who resigned as the dean of Athens University after the rioting spread to campuses.

Police said rioters damaged or destroyed 200 stores and 50 banks in Athens overnight, while 20 buildings were damaged by fires, including downtown hotels that were temporarily evacuated late Monday. A further 100 stores were damaged in Thessaloniki.

There was also rioting in Crete, the holiday island of Corfu, and in other areas around Greece.

Riot police used tear gas when attacked by youths but stood back as they smashed windows and torched stores along Athens' main commercial streets.

Greece's interior minister insisted police had successfully protected human life, and Karamanlis said there would be no leniency for rioters.

On Tuesday, the Bank of Greece announced a 12-month delay on interest payments for loans by shopkeepers affected by the rioting. But the Athens Traders Association encouraged its members to sue the government, saying police had failed to protect them.

The circumstances surrounding Grigoropoulos' shooting are unclear, but the two officers involved have been arrested; one has been charged with murder and the other as an accomplice. A coroner's report shows the boy was shot in the chest.

____

Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros and Menelaos Hadjicostis contributed to this report


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS and ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writers Nicholas Paphitis And Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writers – 15 mins ago



ATHENS, Greece – Greek police prepared for another round of violence with a nationwide strike planned for Wednesday morning, just hours after rioters angry over a teen's fatal police shooting marauded through cities for a fourth straight night.

The country's most violent riots in a quarter century were sparked by last week's shooting death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos. Labor unions have strongly condemned the killing, and rallies are planned Wednesday during the general strike against the government's economic policies.

"There is another gathering (in the morning) with all that that may mean," police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis said.

The nightly scenes of burning street barricades, looted stores and overturned cars have dealt a blow to the country's increasingly unpopular conservative government, which is facing mounting calls for Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis' resignation.

Police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis said Athens had quieted by early Wednesday, with groups of youths holed up in a university building where officers have no access due to a tradition of university asylum.

Minor clashes continued in Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city, where at least two people were arrested.

Police fired tear gas at protesters Tuesday following Grigoropoulos' funeral, which was attended by about 6,000 people.

A police statement said four people were arrested Tuesday for attacking police and 12 for looting. Twenty-five people were arrested for alleged possession of goods looted from damaged stores.

One person was hospitalized after being beaten by vigilantes who allegedly caught him looting in Athens, police said.

Seven officers were injured in Tuesday's clashes. No figures were available on civilian injuries.

The rioting — which has engulfed cities from Thessaloniki in the north to the islands of Corfu and Crete in the south — threatens the political career of Karamanlis, who already faces growing dissatisfaction over financial and social reforms at a time of deep anxiety over growing economic gloom. His government clings to a single seat majority in the 300-member Parliament

Opposition Socialist leader George Papandreou called for early elections, saying the conservatives were incapable of defending the public from rioters.

"The government cannot handle this crisis and has lost the trust of the Greek people," Papandreou said.

The call was echoed by protesters.

"It's very simple — we want the government to fall. This boy's death was the last straw for us," Petros Constantinou, an organizer with the Socialist Workers Party, said in Athens.

Greece was torn by years of civil war between communists and right-wing nationalists in the wake of World War II, and was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974.

A student uprising succeeded in ending the military rule. The uprising left a legacy of activism and simmering tensions between the security establishment and groups of deeply entrenched leftist groups.

But this week's riots have moved beyond the small antiestablishment groups to become a siege of Karamanlis' government, with teenagers and university students joining the self-styled anarchists.

A senior Socialist party official, Christos Protopappas, blamed underlying social inequalities for the violence, saying the government's policies exacerbated the gap between rich and poor.

"If there is no change in policies, I fear that what will happen in six months or one year will be much worse," he said.

____

Associated Press writers Derek Gatopoulos and Menelaos Hadjicostis contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081210/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

Greek government defends handling of riots
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 10, 5:28 pm ET



ATHENS, Greece – Five days of rioting that saw bands of youths marauding through the streets has shocked a generally tolerant Greek public and led many to question how the situation was allowed to degenerate. The police and government are now under intense scrutiny, despite saying they went out of their way to avoid bloodshed.

The government, which also faced a crippling general strike Wednesday, insists it has acted in the public's best interests, safeguarding lives over property amid an unprecedented explosion of rage sparked by the shooting death by police of a 15-year-old in one of Athens' often volatile neighborhoods.

The two officers involved in the shooting were quickly arrested, charged and ordered jailed.

The government sought to show it was trying to act with restraint when it came to dealing with the protesters.

"Human life is top priority. Property comes next," Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos said during the worst of the rioting Monday, as masked youths overturned cars, erected blazing barricades across city streets and smashed stores at will.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose conservatives are hanging with a single seat majority in the 300-member Parliament, is under threat. Already on the ropes after a series of financial scandals and widespread opposition to unpopular economic, pension and education reforms, the riots could be his undoing.

The general strike shut down schools, public services, hospitals and airline flights, increasing the pressure on Karamanlis.

To try to reassure businesses, Karamanlis pledged financial aid to those who lost property in the riots — cash payments of $12,800, delays in tax payments and three-month guarantees for employee salaries.

It is unclear if that will satisfy a shocked public.

"Society is frightened, but also angry at the rioters, the looters and the government," said political science professor Haris Papasotiriou of Athens' Pantion University. "They demand a more dynamic response (to the riots) and better policing."

Separate opinion polls published Wednesday, before the financial aid package was made public, showed 68 percent of Greeks disapproved of the government's handling of the crisis, and gave a nearly 5 percentage-point lead to the Socialists.

"This country is not being governed," senior Socialist party member Evangelos Venizelos said in Parliament. "There is no way Mr. Karamanlis can come back from this."

But Karamanlis has ignored calls for early elections.

The exact circumstances of the death of the youth, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, are disputed. But one thing is clear: the boy was killed in a shooting by police, who have often been accused of heavy-handed tactics.

Alexis Cougias, a lawyer for one of the policemen, told reporters that a ballistics examination showed that the teen was killed by a ricochet and not a direct shot. One officer said he had fired warning shots but did not shoot directly at the boy.

"Because he fired in the air to save his life, as a result of this accident ... he faces family and personal ruin," Cougias said of the officer.

Still, students joined masked youths in the riots, chanting that favorite Greek slogan: "Cops! Pigs! Murderers!"

So authorities wanted to avoid forceful police tactics.

But that has been of little comfort to shopowners, who saw their businesses go up in flames.

"Nobody seems to care about the employees at the burnt shops. What will their fate be now over the Christmas season?" asked one shop assistant on the popular Ermou shopping street who would only give her first name, Eleni.

Although riot police fired tear gas, they did so mainly when attacked themselves and did not intervene when businesses were torched.

Soon, local media were reporting instances of enraged civilians confronting looters.

Violence is nothing new in Greece's frequent demonstrations, where the right to protest is considered an intrinsic part of democracy. The student uprising in 1973 against the 1967-74 military dictatorship has gained near mythical status.

Despite general public grumbling, the occasional Molotov cocktail and tear gas volley during a protest march is considered normal. Groups of youths march under the black-and-red anarchist flag, with the gasoline bombs in their backpacks.

But the unprecedented scale of destruction has horrified Greeks. The conservative daily, Eleftheros Typos, lamented that the very foundation of the country's democracy was at risk.

"What we have been living these days is the revelation of how imperfect and deeply wounded is the democracy for which we brag about," it said in an editorial, which accused police of being incapable of dealing with the riots.

The paper's front page bore a single quote from the ancient Greek rhetorician Isocrates: "Our democracy is self-destructing, because it abused the right to freedom and equality, because it taught people to consider impudence as a right, illegality as freedom, rudeness as equality and anarchy as happiness."

After the near anarchy of Monday night, when the centers of several cities were essentially taken over by masked youths, the level of violence lessened. By Wednesday night, relative calm had returned to most areas.

But the streets surrounding university campuses, particularly in Athens and Greece's second-largest city of Thessaloniki, still simmered with tension.

Under Greek law, police are barred from entering universities — a regulation that gives the self-styled anarchists and rioters a safe base from which to prepare and launch their attacks and stockpile gasoline bombs.

Papasotiriou, the political scientist, argued that until this sometimes zealously guarded right to "university asylum" is abolished, occasional outbursts of violence will continue.

"The lynchpin to the rioters' tactics is the asylum provided by universities. If it were to be abolished, things would be very different," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Demetris Nellas, Nicholas Paphitis and Derek Gatopoulos contributed to this story.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081210/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

Greek youths also angry at govt's fiscal policies
By ELENA BECATOROS and DEREK GATOPOULOS, Associated Press Writer Elena Becatoros And Derek Gatopoulos, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 13 mins ago



ATHENS, Greece – Greek youths hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at police who responded with stun grenades and tear gas Friday, as the seventh straight day of riots triggered by the police killing of a teenager tapped into anger at the government's fiscal policies.

Greece's prime minister, however, rebuffed calls to resign and hold early elections, insisting Friday that a steady hand was needed in times of financial crisis.

Terrified workers in banks along Athens' central Syntagma Square watched in fear as protesters shattered windows just replaced days ago after being damaged in the worst riots Greece has experienced in decades.

Protesters also smashed their way into the main branch of the National Bank of Greece, sending employees fleeing in panic Friday. One protester walked up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside Parliament and threw a black-and-red anarchist flag at it.

The riots broke out within hours of the police shooting death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos death last Saturday, and have since expanded to encompass general anger over economic hardship. Hundreds of stores and dozens of cars have been destroyed or damaged in cities across the country.

"What started as an outburst of rage over Alexandros' killing is now becoming a more organized form of protest," said Petros Constantinou of the Socialist Workers Party.

The violence has hammered Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis' increasingly conservative government, which already faced vociferous opposition to economic and social reforms.

Karamanlis, whose party has only a single seat majority in parliament, explicitly rejected mounting calls for him to resign, saying Friday that Greece needed to focus instead on the global financial crisis.

"That is my concern and the concern and the priority of the government, and not scenarios about elections and successions," Karamanlis said in Brussels, where he was attending an European Union leaders meeting on climate change.

Protesters, occupying high schools and universities, are demanding a reversal of public spending cuts, the resignation of the country's interior minister and the release from custody of arrested riot suspects.

About 100 people have been arrested during the riots and 70 injured.

Protesters also briefly occupied a private Athens radio station Friday and read a statement on the air. A municipal building in the northwestern city of Ioannina was also occupied.

The two police officers involved in the shooting have been jailed pending trial, one for murder and the other as an accomplice. They claim they had been attacked by a group of youths and that one officer had fired warning shots, but witnesses have disputed the claim.

The officers' defense lawyer, Alexis Cougias, said ballistics testing of the bullet that killed Grigoropoulos showed it had ricocheted. The ballistics report has not been released.

Greek police will review their firearms policy, Deputy Minister for Public Order Panayiotis Chinofotis said Friday.

"I have no objection to a major review ... of the (police) use of firearms," he said in Parliament, but warned "this is a situation that requires extensive study and not political exploitation."

The unrest has also spilled over into other European cities, raising concerns the clashes could be a trigger for opponents of globalization, disaffected youth and others outraged by the continent's economic turmoil and soaring unemployment.

Protesters in Spain, Denmark and Italy have smashed shop windows, pelted police with bottles and attacked banks this week, while in France, cars were set ablaze outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux.

On Friday, about 10 Turkish leftists staged a peaceful protest outside the Greek consulate in Istanbul, carrying a banner reading: "We're saluting the resistance of the Greek people."

"End the police terrorism!" the group chanted before dispersing.

Students and other protest groups plan to hold daily marches and roadblocks in the capital next week.

____

Associated Press writer Selcan Hacaoglu in Istanbul contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081212/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer – 19 mins ago



ATHENS, Greece – Inside the gates of Athens' main university, bonfires rage and masked gangs stockpile petrol bombs, broken paving stones and marble hacked from the neoclassical buildings. It's their arsenal for more possible clashes with weary police.

But a week into Greece's worst civil unrest in decades — sparked by the police shooting of a teenage boy and then fed by anger at the country's economic unraveling — the rioters' best weapon is arguably the law.

They have used, some say abused, a decades-old code that bars police from university campuses. The grounds of the Athens Polytechnic have become a combination of sanctuary and makeshift armory for the bands of young men and women who have left parts of the capital ransacked and smoldering.

The self-proclaimed anarchists and revolutionaries based at the Polytechnic have become outnumbered on the streets by more typical demonstrators — such as labor unions and opposition parties — who have called for Greece's increasingly unpopular conservative government to resign.

Yet it's the rage and destruction of the masked youths that have become the symbols of the showdown.

Nearly every night in the past week, the streets around the Polytechnic become an urban battleground. Riot police emerge through clouds of tear gas and the smoke of flaming barricades.

Black-clad youths — their faces covered by masks, scarves and motorbike helmets — hurl petrol bombs over the hulks of torched cars. Late on Saturday night, one pushed a shopping cart full of rocks and chunks of marble to replenish the stocks. Another stumbled into the campus wearing a Spiderman mask.

"Stones! We need more stones!" someone bellowed in the dark. One young man, his face hidden behind a bandanna and a hood, began smashing pieces of concrete from one of the university's buildings, lit only by the orange glow of bonfires.

"Don't waste the Molotovs, damn it! Use them wisely!" another shouted, his voice hoarse from the tear gas fired by riot police night after night.

One man staggered as he came through the gate, retching and with tears streaming down his face. Another rushed up to him, pulling out packs of cotton and cream to soothe the burning.

"You took a strong hit tonight. You took one for the cause," he shouted above the din.

The demands now are mostly cries against the country's increasingly unpopular conservative government and the economic hardships faced by many Greeks — particularly young people — as the economy stalls after years of moderate growth.

The police know that weapons and rocks are stockpiled in the Polytechnic grounds. But they dare not enter.

The image of a tank rolling crashing the Polytechnic's gates on Nov. 17, 1973, to quell a student uprising against the military dictatorship is known to every Greek. The events have gained near mythical status, and Nov. 17 is a public holiday to mark the deaths of the protesters and the beginning of the end for the 1967-74 junta.

The university amnesty law — drafted after the restoration of democracy — is a near airtight ban against police entering university or school campuses across the country. Its stated goal was to safeguard "academic freedom" and other ideals of openness.

But for years it also has given radicals a safe haven in which to regroup, rearm and launch hit-and-run attacks during frequent protests.

Although the law does allow authorities to enter the campus if a felony is committed, only on rare occasions has the asylum been lifted.

"The main reason we have reached this terrible situation for the country and our society is of course because the law is not enforced. ... Laws are voted and flouted," commentator Angelos Stangos said recently in the respected daily Kathimerini.

"But legislation must be passed to scrap the so-called university asylum. The free exchange of ideas is not under the slightest threat. Maintaining university asylum simply provides safe haven to vandals and criminal elements. Universities have been turned into safe houses for lawbreakers who use campuses to make petrol bombs and store makeshift weapons."

And the campuses themselves have suffered.

The Polytechnic, officially called the National Technical University of Athens, is one of Greece's most prestigious universities, founded in 1836 and teaching engineers, architects and scientists. Its main campus is now located outside central Athens, but it retains a facility in the city center that often becomes a stronghold of protesters.

The wide hallways of at least one building of the Polytechnic are covered with graffiti. Slogans support imprisoned protesters or condemn the police and the political establishment. Building materials for reconstruction work are used as weapons, pieces of the buildings are chipped away to hurl at police.

Greeks have a deep well of tolerance for those who rebel against authority, and generally accept the occasional low-level violence that can break out during demonstrations, such as smashing store windows or torching the occasional car. But the destructive fury unleashed by the fatal police shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Dec. 6 has deeply shocked many Greeks.

Still, police are on the defensive. One visited a burglary scene wearing a coat over his uniform, apparently to avoid attracting attention.

Greece's Retailers Association estimated 100 million euros ($135 million) in damage to stores, and predicted 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in lost revenue during the peak holiday shopping period.

On Monday, about 2,000 youths confronted riot police outside Athens' main police headquarters.

Students also gathered outside Athens' main court complex, where four people arrested during last week's riots were ordered to remain in custody. The policeman accused of killing the teenager, meanwhile, has been charged with murder and is being held pending trial.

Socialist opposition leader George Papandreou renewed calls Monday for early elections.

"The government cannot deal with this crisis," he said. "It cannot protect people — their rights or property — and it cannot identify with the anxiety felt by the younger generation."

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose party has only a single seat majority in parliament, has repeatedly rejected calls to resign, saying the country needed a steady hand in times of crisis.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081215/...u_greece_riots

[samanthajane13]

Riot police, youths clash in Athens, shoppers flee
By ELENA BECATOROS and DEREK GATOPOULOS, Associated Press Writer Elena Becatoros And Derek Gatopoulos, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 5 mins ago



ATHENS, Greece – Riot police clashed with rock-throwing demonstrators in central Athens on Thursday, sending Christmas shoppers and people in cafes running for cover. Frightened parents scooped up their children from a Christmas carousel in the city's main square and fled.

The protesters broke away from a peaceful rally and hurled rocks and firebombs at police and buildings near parliament, overturned a car and set fire to trash bins. They also splashed police with red paint.

Police responded with tear gas and flash grenades.

Firefighters and police also rushed to stop protesters from burning down the city's main Christmas tree, which was just replaced earlier this week after the first was torched in riots. Families abandoned the carousel in downtown Syntagma Square after happily going on rides all morning.

Thursday's clashes were the latest outbreak of violence after the police's fatal shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos Dec. 6. Protests over the boy's death and the increasing economic hardship in Greece have led to the worst rioting the country has seen in decades.

Hundreds of businesses have been smashed, burned or looted and gangs of youths fought running battles with riot police firing tear gas every night for a week. The riots have been fed by dissatisfaction with Greece's increasingly unpopular conservative government.

More than 200 youths took part in running battles with police Thursday in Athens. They also set fire to a private security van and set up a burning barricade after smashing a cafe storefront, and dragging out and setting fire to its furniture. Downtown streets were littered with smashed paving stones and marble blocks.

Shop owners who saw their businesses smashed and looted during the initial riots last week now say they are having trouble making ends meet because many customers are staying away from the city center.

"Who's going to pay all these bills? I'm taking in euro200 ($290) a day," complained Spyros Papaspyrou, the owner of a shoe shop in central Athens. "Do they want me to stand outside my shop with a shotgun? I can't understand why they can't arrest 80 people in the center of Athens."

Before the violence broke out, some 7,000 students and other protesters marched in a rally, chanting "We are the law, we'll stay on the streets." As they passed, fearful shop owners shuttered their store fronts. Some demonstrators painted white crime-scene-style body outlines on the streets.

Earlier in the day, some 1,000 demonstrators joined a peaceful Communist Party-backed march through the city. Some 300 people also marched in Greece's second largest city of Thessaloniki.

While sporadic rallies have been held in Europe in support of the Greek protesters, none were reported Thursday.

Major labor union staged work stoppages Thursday to protest the teenager's shooting and the conservative government's economic policies.

Air traffic controllers walked off the job for three hours, forcing state Olympic Airlines to cancel 28 flights and reschedule another 14. State hospitals were operating with skeleton staff in a 24-hour strike.

The government appealed for calm after another teenager was shot in the hand late Wednesday near his school. It was unclear who shot him.

Police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis said no officers were in the area at the time of the attack, and Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos promised a thorough investigation. The boy underwent surgery Thursday.

___

Associated Press writers Nicholas Paphitis in Athens and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS number in quote to 80.)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081218/...reece_protests

[samanthajane13]

Youths attack French Institute in Athens
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 31 mins ago

ATHENS, Greece – Rioting youths attacked the French Institute in Athens with firebombs Friday, while Greek union members and university professors geared up for new anti-government rallies outside Parliament.

Some windows of the French Institute, a cultural and language learning center, were smashed but the interior was not seriously damaged in the attack by about 20 youths, police said. A nearby bank ATM was also damaged. No injuries were reported.

"Spark in Athens. Fire in Paris. Insurrection is coming," read one slogan spray-painted onto the building's walls in French. Another, written in Greek, read "France, Greece, uprising everywhere."

Athens has seen near daily hit-and-run attacks by youths throwing firebombs in the past two weeks, after the fatal police shooting of a 15-year-old sparked the worst riots Greece has seen in decades. The rage unleashed by the Dec. 6 shooting has lifted the lid on years of dissatisfaction over social inequality, poor employment prospects for young people, and increasing anger with the conservative government's economic policies.

Greece's two largest umbrella trade union organizations were to rally later in the day to protest the government's 2009 budget, and professors also planned to rally outside Parliament to lobby on education issues.

Students also planned a mass concert Friday in central Athens in support of the "uprising of youth" and against "state repression."

The rallies and concert come a day after a demonstration against police brutality by about 7,000 students and teachers turned violent, sending Christmas shoppers and panicked families fleeing to safety.

Around 200 youths wearing masks hurled petrol bombs and chunks of marble hammered from surrounding buildings in central Athens at riot police, who responded with stun grenades and repeated volleys of acrid tear gas.

Mothers snatched children from a carousel in the main square. Waiters stumbled from cafes, choking on the tear gas, and rioters tried to burn the capital's Christmas tree, just days after it replaced another tree that was torched in the initial riots.

Athens police said eight people were arrested during Thursday's violence. Over 300 have been arrested so far.

After two weeks of unrelenting rioting set off by the killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a slogan spray-painted outside the Bank of Greece summed up the mood: "Merry crisis and a happy new fear."

The two policemen involved in the teenager's shooting have been jailed pending trial. One has been charged with murder and the other as an accomplice.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081219/...reece_protests

[samanthajane13]

Violence erupts on Greek riot anniversary
By ELENA BECATOROS, Asspcoated Press Writer Elena Becatoros, Asspcoated Press Writer – 59 mins ago

ATHENS, Greece – Protesters hurled rocks and burning garbage at police Sunday as violence erupted during a march to mark the first anniversary of the police shooting of a teenager, whose death sparked massive riots.

Police fired tear gas at scores of hooded youths in central Athens, as several thousand demonstrators marched to commemorate the death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

The rioters smashed bank windows, overturned trash bins and hurled rocks and fire crackers at riot police. Authorities said 48 people were detained for public-order offenses. At least five protesters were injured in the clashes.

Police on motorcycles chased rioters amid scenes of chaos at Athens' main Syntagma Square, with youths punching and kicking officers pushed off their bikes.

At Athens University, masked protesters broke into the building and pulled down a Greek flag, replacing it with a black-and-red anarchist banner.

Violence also broke out in Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city, where youths threw petrol bombs at police, set fire to several cars and smashed 10 storefronts, including a Starbucks cafe. At least 20 people were detained in the northern city.

More than 6,000 police had been deployed across greater Athens in anticipation that demonstrations would turn violent. Protests were held in the capital and several other Greek cities.

Concern was heightened by reports that far-left groups and anarchists from other European countries have traveled to Greece to join the marches.

Ahead of Sunday's clashes, police detained 160 people following minor clashes in central Athens and a raid on a cafe, where police seized sledgehammers and firebomb-making equipment.

Grigoropoulos was killed by a policeman's bullet on the evening of Dec. 6, 2008. Within a few hours of his death, riots spread from the Greek capital to several cities across the country, with police apparently powerless to prevent youths from smashing, looting and burning stores in violence that continued for two weeks.

The new Socialist government, which came to power in October and has been confronted with a surge in armed attacks by far-left and anarchist groups after last year's shooting, and had vowed a zero-tolerance approach to violence at Sunday's commemorations.

___

Associated Press Writers Demetris Nellas and Karolina Tagaris in Athens, and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091206/...ts_anniversary

[samanthajane13]

More protests in Greece over 2008 police shooting

ATHENS, Greece – Greek youths are planning more protests in Athens and other major cities as part of the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager that sparked riots last year.

Extensive clashes between rioting youths and police marred protests by students and anarchists over the weekend. Authorities arrested dozens.

A large march by secondary schoolchildren is scheduled for central Athens at noon Monday, while smaller protests are scheduled throughout the country.

The weekend violence echoed the rioting that engulfed Greek cities for more than two weeks after the 15-year-old boy was killed on Dec. 6, 2008. But turnout at the protests was much lower, and damage to private property limited.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091207/...ts_anniversary