Potent mix of radicals at university in Athens

Early Saturday morning inside the gates of Athens Polytechnic, a dozen groggy young people in hooded sweatshirts slumped on folding chairs around a smoky fire. Others trickled in, holding cups of coffee. Gypsy children scampered around with wheelbarrows, collecting empty beer bottles. One child lit a cigarette.

But the young people were not recovering from a long night of drinking or studying. They were preparing for revolution.

Many of the violent protests that have rocked Athens in recent days, since a 15-year-old was killed by a police bullet on Dec. 6, have taken place in and around the school, driven by a group of anarchists who have often occupied the buildings here.

Come sundown on many nights, the Polytechnic, three graffiti-covered neoclassical buildings set amid pine trees, became an apocalyptic scene. Garbage fires burned in its front courtyard. On nearby streets, youths throwing gasoline bombs and rocks clashed with riot police officers armed with tear gas. The hulks of burned-out cars lay like carcasses in the streets.

Someone spray-painted “Don't blame us, the rocks ricocheted” on a wall — a reference to a statement by the lawyer for the policeman who killed the teenager, who said the bullet did not hit the boy directly.

The National Technical University of Athens, as the Polytechnic is officially called, is one of Greece's leading universities, training engineers, architects and scientists since 1836. It moved its main campus outside the city center in the 1980s, leaving its downtown buildings, which now house just the architecture and engineering departments and an auditorium, largely to the whims of protest groups.

The university administration has tended to view the demonstrators as uninvited houseguests who overstayed their welcome so long ago that they have become fixtures.

But these protests have been different. “In former times, a couple of years ago, there were only students protesting,” said Konstantinos Moutzouris, the rector of the Polytechnic. “This time there are all kinds of groups — this is difficult to control.”

Conversations with those inside the Polytechnic revealed a mix of students, older anarchists and immigrants protesting everything from police brutality to globalization to American imperialism. Some are simply thrill-seekers along for the ride. Mr. Moutzouris estimated that there were 50 protesters taking refuge inside the gates, joined by hundreds of others each evening.

Under an asylum law instituted after the police crushed a student rebellion at the Polytechnic against the military junta in 1973, the Greek police are not allowed on universities' property unless requested by administrators.

Tensions between the police and protesters are so high that Mr. Moutzouris said asking the police to intervene would cause even more disorder. “We're not in the mood of inviting them,” he said. “I think we would have damages and even some people hurt.”

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