There were smashed storefronts, burning roadblocks made of dumpsters and canisters of flash grenades. A crowd of 5,000 pushed through the streets of Athens, wrecking everything in its path. It was Dec. 6, 2008. After years of minor violence and rising tensions between Athenian citizens and the police, Athens was rioting, and I was in the midst of it.
I studied abroad in Athens, Greece during the fall semester. My apartment was located in central Athens, the Pangrati neighborhood, near the old Olympic Stadium.
When I heard that riots had broken out in Athens, I was shocked but somehow felt compelled to watch. On the first night everything shocked me. I saw shattered glass on every block and storefront after storefront smashed. Even the rock throwing was exciting-I guess that would be the word-to see. Greeks often use public protest and riots similar to the way that Americans use petitions and complaints, and what I saw confirmed it.
In 1973, the U.S.-backed military junta invaded the National Polytechnic University in Athens after students began to protest the regime. The invasion caused many student casualties. Since then, most Greek citizens have been suspicious of the Greek justice system. Furthermore, police and army forces are still forbidden to enter university or school campuses.
Police do not go in certain neighborhoods in Athens, such as Exarheia (adjacent to the Polytechnic) for fear of being attacked by mobs of students and anarchists. It is not uncommon for the police to be drawn into the neighborhood by false phone complaints only to be pelted by bottles or rocks.
The country had not seen rioting on this scale since 1985, when 15-year-old Michalis Kaltezas' murder by police sparked months of violent riots.
On Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008, the police shot and killed Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a teenager who came from an affluent family and attended a private school. The official report states that the police were provoked and that the boy and a mob of young Athenians threatened to attack them. Witnesses later revealed that he had not actually attacked the police and was not killed by a ricochet, as was previously presumed, but by one of the police officers' direct shots. After the boy was killed in Exarheia, the neighborhood became the epicenter of much of protesting and rioting.
The riots started Sunday morning after insurgents marched from Exarheia to the police headquarters. There, they were confronted by riot police, who tried to disperse them.
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