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Riots in downtown Athens. The situation got out of control

12 May 2011 / 18:05:13  GRReporter
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I went to the operational police officer and asked him: "Why do you not allow the people to carry out the planned procession?" The policeman turned around and said politely: "If you want an official statement refer to the central station." The answer made no sense. A middle-aged man popped up from the crowd, apparently upset, and cried in a trembling voice: "Look at me. I am an ordinary citizen. I live here. Why have you closed us as if we are some dangerous criminals? We want to make a peaceful procession." After an hour, the police opened the blockades to the centre and the procession was allowed.

Not the residents of the neighbourhood, but the members of the Golden Dawn were on the first line. Shoulder to shoulder, the young men held the Greek flags hung on thick sticks that looked more like bats. Almost all of them wore motor jackets with protectors. This time, these jackets had to keep them not from accidents, but from police bats, if necessary. Their faces were covered up with black cloths to the nose and with sunglasses. The journalists were moving at least two hundred meters ahead, and the cameras were held in hands or shot fragments from away. The members of the Golden Dawn, like the anarchists, do not like to be shot and this not from vanity.

The things got out of control when the procession came to Omonia Square. It was led by the special police forces that sent away any black passer-by and told him hide in the first entry he finds. The warnings were for their own good, because the members of the far-right organization were ready to attack. And the attack was not late. There were shouts heard. Someone threw a stick. For the first time in my life I saw a man running for his life. At the end of September 3rd Avenue a black man walked unwisely to cross the street in front of the procession. A young boy from the ranks of the Dawn with a tracksuit and sports shoes left the procession and started chasing him. He got him down the road and started hitting him. People were screaming crazily. The police as if sleeping did not hurry to get to them and separate them. The slogans "Out foreigners!" sounded stronger than ever.

So, the peaceful procession in the name of Manolis Kantaris became a chase between the members of the Golden Dawn and the immigrants in Athens. The people with skin in different colour than the white ran and tried to hide like mice from the rising tide of blind anger. A Molotov bomb exploded in the centre in front of the city hall on Kotzia Square, and most of the first lines of the protest went down Evripidou Street, where there are illegal hotels and the area is known as the small Pakistan, because a European can not be seen there.

Meanwhile, about two kilometers away from the excesses, the supporters of the anarchist movements in Athens began to gather. They had planned their protest march to the Parliament on Syntagma Square. The protest was in support of the 31-year-old man lying in a hospital at the peril of his life and around 2000 people joined it. The protest in the name of Manolis Kantaris had gathered almost half of that number. The anarchists lit dust-bins on their way.

Currently, groups from both processions are still downtown Athens where the night will be filled with developments.

 

Tags: SocietyStrikesRiotsMurderAttacksGreeceProtests
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