Raw Video of 15 December Athens Riot

The footage below was shot by Ross Domoney.

Greece stages it's seventh general strike this year following harsh austerity measures which have been put in place to try and take the country out of it's soaring debt.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered around Sydagma square and marched past parliament to voice their anger about the current economic situation. Many where chanting "No Sacrifice for the rich" and walls were graffitied with slogans reading "Eat the rich" and "Occupy Athens, London, Rome" in reference to recent violent protests in other European capitals.

Protesters fought running street battles with riot police and explosives where heard across athens.

The riots where dubbed the worst in Greece in the past two years.

A hotel near to parliament was fire bombed and some cars where set ablaze. Later the conflict took place at the Politechnio university where police are forbidden to enter following a dictatorship which lead to a student revolt in 1973. The university has become a stronghold for Anarchists in Athens.

Some protesters vowed that the riots on 15th December where a taste of things to come next year.

~ via From The Greek Streets ~

The Desperate Plight of Asylum Seekers in Greece

Immigrants under attack by fascist/police mob in the streets of Athens

Early this afternoon, on Patision street just outside ASOEE (the Athens School of Economics and Business), immigrant street vendors were attacked by a large group of between 30-50 police and what people suspect were either undercovers or fascists. This brutal attack resembled nothing less than a lynch mob.

It is common for many immigrants to gather on this crowded part of the street to sell things to passersby, normally looking out for each other and moving away if cops are seen approaching.

The police and undercovers/fascists (including DIAS, Delta, and municipal police) hid in the back streets in order to take the street vendors by surprise. They attacked, chasing, smashing their belongings, and beating the immigrants. They ran to the university trying to take refuge. The immigrants together with comrades who were in ASOEE repulsed the cops at the gate of the university with the help of some fire extinguishers. In this scuffle a municipal police van was smashed by the immigrants. ...

Refugees from Afghanistan, Iran and Palestine stitch their lips, go on a hunger strike to obtain refugee status

By Anastasia Balezdrova, GRReporter

For more than two weeks the sidewalk across from the UN mission in Athens has become a tent camp of dozens of refugees. "There near the flag are the Palestinians, next to them are the Afghans, and then we are from Iran," showed me the 27-year-old Bahram. The people stay in tents day and night united by their common claim to the Greek state to grant them political asylum.

[ ... ]

About 50 Iranians have protested a few days ago in front of the Iranian Embassy against the president and the government of the country considered to be dictatorship. "They beat and kill people there just because they are against the regime. Most of us have fled our country for that very reason. This man here has spent 17 years in prison after being arrested during student protests," said Bahram while showing me pictures of women buried to the waist in the ground to be stoned and people victims of brutal beatings by religious police. "The Embassy of Iran is very close. A car passed by here yesterday, someone took a picture of us from within and then went on without stopping. This is very dangerous for us. People from the embassy send the pictures to Iran. Actually, these are not ordinary photographs. They can take data for me from them like the iris of my eye or my fingerprints," said also the young man.

Most Iranians have left their jobs to be in the camp. They say that if they have no response from the Greek government they will take more serious actions. They intend to go on a hunger strike and stitch their mouths. "We have nothing to lose. We have only our bodies and our lives. If Greece does not take care of us and decides to bring us back to Iran we prefer to commit suicide here than to be killed there."

Two Afghans from the next tent stitched their mouths four days ago. Since then they drink only water with a straw. One of them was lying and he looked bad, so the people called an ambulance to take him to hospital. ...

See also:

Short history of hunger strikes by refugees

Police to Palestinian refugees, "tonight will be a bloodshed"