Update about the student protests in Athens and Thessaloniki
international |
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news report 
Friday March 09, 2007 01:24
by Evans
Latest report about the brutal and provocative actions of the police in Athens and Thessaloniki
Demonstrations were organised today protesting against the privatisation of universities. 35000 students at the demo, extended use of tear gas, 62 arrests.
Reports from the Athens police Heardquarters say that all of the 62 temporary detainees will be considered as arrestees. There is a widespread terror imposed on the arrestees, even 1st-year undergraduate girls have been accused for social disturbance. 45 people had to go to the hospital since they were injured. The police and the Public Prosecutor are very provocative, not allowing the arrestees to meet their lawyers. Also, 5 injured detainees, students in Chemical Engineering, are not allowed to go to the hospital.
Riots spread in Thessaloniki city as well, followin a spontaneous solidarity march that took place, in protest for the repression that had taken place in Athens. Currently the riot police is spraying tear gas towards the university and the students in the Thessaloniki Polytechnic Faculty are suffering. The student radio 1431AM is reporting that the gas is everywhere in the corridors. Hundreds of students are trying to escape the gas, some of them into rooms or on the roof.
The radios speakers say they are confident we are facing the first implications of the new legislation, that has led to dictatorship.
Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Good to see the old traditions are alive and kicking! Here in Ireland the university system is being privatised under our noses with closures of "financially unsound" courses a weekly event, yet very few people seem to care. And in the long run it is Irish commerce that will suffer when there are no "financially unsound" actors, musicians, artists, physicists, mathematicians or statisticians. But then Ireland has a long history (episis Elada) of exporting its young.
One thing that stands out in the photographs is seeing Adams, Starbucks Coffee, Habitat and Vodaphone in the same livery and script as they use in their homelands. They are colonising a foreign country and replacing both the language and the alphabet. It was oh-so-chic when Marks & Spencers opened on Tsimiski with luxury chocolates and lingerie, but this is wholesale invasion.
Athens, 9th of March 2007
We denounce the unforeseen brutality and harshness of the police attacks against students, teachers, workers and youth during the protest march at 8th of March. The largest march of the last years, with more than 35,000 demonstrators participating, was ruined by the police and the government. The future scientists are shows as criminals, by the government and the media, in a country where it is known that the democratic rights were won by these very struggles of the students. This is how, those who force people to get on the streets, ask for abbetors within the common sense, in order to cover their crime.
While our Hospital was in duty, we were all witnesses of this tragic and bloody attack, as more than 30 injured people came along as urgent incidents, wounded on the neck and the head. The kind of the wounds and the severeness of the contusions they had had, proves that it has been a planned murdering attack against anyone who fights for their rights, for public and free education.
People under medical treatment are still in Hospital, while seven wounded detainees were brought several hours later than they should have, in the early hours, and were moved back to the Police Headquarters in secrecy. We worry for the health state of these injured detainees. We worry for the suppression of every march. What will be the future of any reaction of ours for the lacks in the health system? should we expect a new walloping upon the uprising of the Hospitals?
We worry, we resist, we struggle. The struggle is not ending now. Against the violence of the power, we insist on pretend to our rights.
On the side of the student, the worker, every struggling person.
administrative committee of the
Union of Employees in the RED CROSS
announcement of the TV Technicians' Union
We denounce the manoevres of the government to ask the footage of the riots, using the Public Prosecutor. The government and the Public Prosecutor should know that the visual material from the riots is a property of the TV stations and royalty of the cameramen. The cameramen work only for providing information to the Greek People, recording the actual events as observers, and not as “puppets” of the Police and the Government. We won't consent on any mechanism of control and power, as they try to control our effort and support its social and political insufficiency. We request from all the TV station Managers not to commit such an action.
the committee of the TV technical personnel
http://www.indy.gr/newswire/enimerosi-gia-tin-foititik-.../view
Athens Court: Parents clashed with the police outside building 7, were the the minor charges are facing trial. The conflict started after some parents tried to enter the building, and they were pushed away by the cops. The conflict spread around and the cops started hitting. The cops sprayed some parents on the face, one parent collapsed and another one was transferred to the hospital.
Photos posted in Indymedia show a cop hitting, by holding his baton the way round, which is strictly prohibited. Indymedia material was screen on all TV channels.
Here is a good analysis from the International Marxist Tendency on the brutal state repression against protesting youth in Greece.
http://www.marxist.com/greek-military-police-protesting...7.htm
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