Today it was a peaceful day. Apart from Athens. Just for the info, in Athens lives the half of the population of this small country. It is a five million people city in an eleven million country. When I say peaceful I mean there were no big demonstrations in other cities.
In Athens there were three big demonstrations today.
The first was a rally organised by the "people of education", school and university teachers, university students and some school children. It was quite massive, some sources spoke for ten thousand protesters. It started at Propilaia and ended there as well after going through Panepistimiou street and Stadiou street in Sintagma square, in front of the greek parliament. Once again police decided to attack the protesters in front of the parliament with wholly new chemicals (the last days there were reports that were saying that tear gas was finishing, today's reports by protesters were saying for very heavy poisonous gases that left people unable to breathe, with heavy nausea that continued many hours after their contact with them). In Sintagma square some protesters tried to burn the new christmas tree of the Municipality of Athens (the previous one was burnt on previous Monday I think), but riot police right away went there and surrounded it to protect it. After the first clashes on Sintagma square the demonstration continued towards Propilaia, where new large scale clashes started from a group that later went towards the University of Law near by. The main part of today's riots happened around and in front of the Law School (I will post some photos today instead of trying to put it in words). Earlier there were six arrests reported by the media but later police announced only three; Two of the first ones are definitely unjustified, with videos proving that policemen just caught innocent people that were near them or passers by
-The second demonstration today again in central Athens was an antiracist rally organised by political groups of immigrants and greek groups of solidarity to immigrants. Today it was the international day of immigrants and Greece unfortunately is one of the worst european countries for an immigrant to live. Especially the last days, it was for the police and for fascist organisations a good opportunity to revive the deeply xenophobic sentiments of greek society; a great number of the arrested these days were immigrants accused for stealing and looting from smashed stores. Of course I don't have to remind to any of us that stealing apart from a criminal activity of organised mafia groups is a social necessity for people that do not have equal rights, jobs, food etc. The latter have of course the right to die homeless by hunger, but personally I would not criminalise the ones that chose not to. The demonstration tried to go outside the headquarters of the European Union in Athens but police decided to deny them the right to demonstrate and they stayed mainly near Sintagma square.
-The third protest was originated by a very serious event that happened last night in Peristeri. A seventeen year old kid was shot by an unidentified gun (and shooter) on the hand. The kid, member of his school assembly, was discussing with colleagues today's participation to protests. There are many scenarios as to who shot the boy but in these days nobody trusts the police to solve such a suspicious crime (as there are thoughts that it could be another psychopath policeman once again following orders). The massive demonstration walked through streets of Peristeri peacefully.
I am sorry for not having news for the rest of Greece but the last days I don't have much time to group the info properly and this is why I post this thread one day later. Some photos from today and some links to photos below
Riot police protect amid tear gases the Christmas spirit in Sintagma square
Photos mainly from today's demonstration here and here, more of the riots here and here
This belongs to a nice b/w series from Thessaloniki (not from today) which you can see here
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