top
International
International
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

Video of Athens anarchist response to police shooting

by Youtube/athens.indy
Greece is well known for its intense anarchist energy, where actions taken during street protests often exceed what is seen in the rest of europe and the USA. This probably results from the recent history of Greece in emerging from a right-wing dictatorship in the 1970s, so people take antifascism seriously. Greece regularly sees use of incendiary devices which would result in a severe Homeland security crackdown in the US. After the police shot a young anarchist in a neighborhood of Athens where a couple dozen youth were challenging a police car, thousands of anarchists and leftists participated in anti-police demonstrations and property destruction
athens-emergencyser_445349a.jpg
Quick summary of Saturday's protests.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/news-us-greece-shooting.html?_r=1&hp
"Greece's worst riots in years erupted late on Saturday after the shooting in Athens and quickly spread to the northern city of Thessaloniki and other towns.

Despite appeals for calm from Greece's conservative government, violence erupted again on Sunday.

In Athens, tear gas choked the central Alexandras Avenue and protesters rained petrol bombs down on police, setting fire to buildings. Acrid grey smoke filled the air and glass and rubble were strewn across the street.

"Two car dealerships ... have been completely burned down. A supermarket is on fire and it seems there are at least four people trapped on the third floor," said an Athens police official, who declined to be named."
-------
Some material is appearing at Greek indymedia, but only some of it has english translation so far. What do you think would happen if a group used fire in the USA? Can anyone translate what these businesses were? The other thought I always have when seeing this stuff in europe with historical buildings is that it would be nice if that were a cheaply constructed big box store building.
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=934465

Spectacular fire at business
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsxT9Cg4Fvs

This is the street from the first round of response. Sunday was the second flare up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlwAfloeVFo

Street level filming of fire in business district
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtTB-C5MA8U

Sideways video of aftermath on street, smoke from burning items (hold a laptop sideways for best viewing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67xzc4MO4PM
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by pavlos
The pictures in the athens.indymedia article are actually from the (London) Times. It is unclear what businesses these were. Neither the Greek text, nor the Times article indicates. However, other reports have mentioned two car dealerships, banks, political and diplomatic offices and several small businesses.

Latest reports from Greece indicate that one of the two cops (presumably the shooter) will be charged with manslaughter with intent and the second one with criminal abetting. Not likely that this will calm things down any time soon.
by someone
Hi. I think the burnt-down building is a bank shop on Ermou (i.e. Hermes) street, probably the most expensive commercial street in Greece. It must be next to Monastiraki square in downtown Athens.
An ex-pate Athenian.


by Panagiotis
This is the murder 's video footage titled "Cold-blood murder": http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Fua9G63HM. By 0:02-0:06 the girl speaks in german "the police does it" and at 0:10, the shooting. The girl then says "they are assholes". The cop shoots, it seems that there is no obvious threat, the police cars stands next to them parked in the right, then both flee the place in a calm manner, like nothing happened. Yet...
There is also a news buletin with eye witnesses: http://www.in.gr/video/default.aspx?videoID=76190
almost all of them say the same thing: there wasn 't any threat to the cops, except a verbal abuse between the two parts. The journalist asks the girl that took the footage: "Were the policement aiming at him, or they were aiming the air?" -"No, they were aiming just on him, it was obvious, they clearly intended to shoot him down". Also, they appear the pedestrians and a motorcycle rider (showing his back).
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network