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A week of protests and strikes on all fronts

26 September 2011 / 13:09:25  GRReporter
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The new week begins with a new wave of strikes and public protests in Greece. There will be no urban transport in Athens almost throughout the week and taxi owners will go on a strike on Wednesday and Thursday. Public sector employees and the enterprises it involves will protest against the introduction of the labour reserve system in which they see hidden redundancies.

Tomorrow afternoon, the parliament will vote the extraordinary property tax that will be included in electricity bills. The government is trying to persuade PASOK MPs to support it, while various social and professional groups are preparing to protest outside the parliament.

Actually, there were protests during the weekend too. About 50 students, including people at an age not explaining their presence there, "occupied" the studio of the state-owned television ERT shortly after the central news broadcast at 21:00. They interrupted the presenter and insisted to hold "live" their protest against the fact that the national TV channel does not cover the occupations held in different departments of Greek universities against the new law on higher education.

According to sources, the students entered the building of the national television ERT from the main entrance and headed to the studio broadcasting the news. They raided and as a result, the news program that was on air a few minutes earlier was interrupted.

Negotiations began, during which the students refused to leave the studio if their protest and their other demands were not presented in the news broadcast. After they were proposed the presenter to read their manifesto, the students agreed to make statements before the national television camera outside the studio.

About 30 of them remained in the building to watch the video during the broadcast at midnight and the rest were on the sidewalk of Mesogion Avenue where they shouted protests in solidarity with the "occupiers". However, due to technical problems there was no news broadcast at midnight and after about 40 minutes of commercials, there was a film. The students remained in the operating room until the early hours, waiting to watch the video, and journalists and technicians in the studio were ready to broadcast the news.

The Greek police protested in an original and unusual way today. Members of the board of the Association of Special Forces stretched a big black banner reading "The Greek police is mourning. Salary day - Mourning day" and the emblem of the police on Likavitos hill in central Athens. They said they had resorted to this "activist action" in an attempt to resist the imposition of extraordinary taxes and deductions in wages, resulting in serious financial problems for all the Greek policemen. Tomorrow, they will hold a protest outside the Greek Parliament under the same title.
 
At the same time, the movement of the discontented, which was missing in the summer, made its first attempt to renew their protests, which involved clashes with police again. Last night, they gathered at Syntagma Square along with the members of the "I do not pay" movement, who refuse to pay the extraordinary taxes voted by parliament. According to police sources, a group of protesters, who were at the square, tried to "conquer" Amalias Avenue and to block the traffic. The police dispersed them, then the protesters attacked the officers and they responded with tear gas and light bombs.

A little later, the situation calmed down, the police retreated to the monument of the Unknown Soldier. The traffic along the avenue was still blocked. Citizens, who attended the protest, said that the police attacked them for no reason and that a woman was injured during the clashes.

Tags: SocietyProtestNational TVERTStudentsPolicemenSloganDiscontentedClashes
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