burn baby burn!from Indymedia:
During the night there were attacks on police stations, banks and other targets, the number of which is still unknown. The day started early on Monday. Students at highschools across the country had meetings this morning and decided to protest and show their rage for the murder and the police. The students walked out of the classrooms, some schools were occupied and on others the students demonstrated, stopping the traffic in major roads and setting barricades. This has happened in dozens of cities, even the smaller ones. Slogans were shouted and painted on walls and in some cities the students attacked the cops and their stations, setting fire barricades on the streets, and turning police cars upside down. In Athens, in many neighborhoods, suburbs and downtown, there were big demonstrations by students in the morning, a big number of which classed with the police and there were arrests. The police reactions were very strong against the students (14-17 year old kids) and even the corporate media, who usually follow the police views and cover up their acts, showed riot cops brutally abusing and beating 15 yo boys and girls. What happened later, in the afternoon and night is still unclear. For sure there were thousands of people in the streets rioting, clashing with the police and smashing banks, corporate shops and governmental buildings. The media talk about huge disasters and they show videos of rioting and burning buildings and cars but there are no independent reports since the local Indymedia center is down all day due to heavy traffic and perhaps attacks from the police. The government is holding meetings all day and there is a rumor going on in the news that it will declare a state of emergency. There is need for international solidarity. Please mention the subject on your local infoshop, squat, anarchist talking group and organize gatherings outside the greek embassies and consulates. Print and handout pamphlets about the situation and protest against the police brutality everywhere. So far, the greek embassies in London (UK) and Berlin (Germany) were occupied, demonstrations took place in Hamburg (Germany), Paris (France), Verne (Switzerland),Leukosia (Cyprus) outside the greek embassies, in Croatia where the embassy was attacked and probably more.
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Lets go a bit backwards before saying what happened last night.
On Sunday afternoon, while there were demos and riots on the streets of Athens, people on greek indymedia were discussing that on Monday schools should not work. That the pupils should take over the schools and then go on the streets of their towns and demonstrate. One guy thought and wrote an "SMS message" and posted it on the site. Within no time that message appeared on all over the net.. Myspace, Facebook, Hi5, also on MSN messangers and yahoo, various forums, everywhere... School kids started sending this SMS to their friends, these friends to others and so on... Within hours a hudge number of school kids from all over Greece had this SMS and were discussing between themselves of what would happen on next day...
Monday morning and the schools in all over Greece are not working. The school kids are there, but they have taken over the buildings and do not allow any classes to start. In the most of the cases their teachers were with them and started organizing them for the demonstrations. Within a few hours thousands of school kids in every town, even in very small towns around Greece, were out on the streets protesting. Their teachers were with them, trying to control the kids and being sure that noone else comes in the demo in order to create trouble. The kids were ungry because of what happened... A young teenager, one of them, whas shot dead by a cop 2 days ago... In a lot of towns the kids started throwing stones against the police, in some occassions they even attacked police departments ! ... Police responded with chemicals and violence.... In Athens a clash between the school demo and RIOT police started. Police were throwing chemicals in the demo, the pupils were trying to escape as they had not lived such an experience before. On one incident a group of policemen had down a 12 YEAR OLD GIRL and were hitting her on her head, on her body.... People gathered there and tried to stop the police or actively or were shouting to them..
Apart from these incidents that were not that many you could generally say that the school demos were peacefull.
A Demo had been called also for 6 yesterday afternoon... The one I attended as well. Nommater the fact that all these demos during the last 3 days are happening on short notice, of course they were not planned but are happening because of the event, a big crowd turns up. When I reached the anarchist bloc, near Omonia square, thousands and thousands were allready there and more were coming. More than 15000 protestors appeared on that demo. We were 2 anarchist blocs, a big one (I was in that one) and also an another smaller but really hardcore and crazy. Even from that point, on the beggining they tried to burn a .. kiosk (why I am still wondering) but were prevented by us... The whole situation really quickly turned crazy though, in no time a bank in Omonia square was on fire and other riots started. A shop in that square, sells swords and traditional guns, but also new ones... The shop was destroyed and the guns, swords etc were LOOTED. I have heard that a load of them was later found throw away at Panepistimiou avenue, but noone knows if these were all or that there are still people with guns on them. The demo started going towards Propylaia and then to Syntagma square, the building of the greek parliament and then continued further down. IN ALL THE WAY riots were taking place between police, the anarchist blocs, but also on other points of the demo... A LOT OF BLOCKS were actively participating on riots with police. A massive ammount of chemicals was thrown, as I said yesterday these are "special" chemicals and also rubber bullets were fired. EVERYTHING WAS GETTING BURNED. COMPLETELY The fire brigade reports that 22 BUILDINGS (not just the shops but the WHOLE buildings) were burned. The shops that "survived" and were not set on fire they WERE SET ON FIRE BY RIOT POLICE. Yes, police was picking up objects from the streets and were throwing them inside the stores, I am an eye witness to that. The reasons are of course obvious, their goal was to create even more chaos and people property to get destroyed, so then the public will turn against the demos rather than in favour. The broken stores were then looted by people mostly by immigrants. Mobile phones, jewlerry, televisions even meat from a buchers shop was looted ....The tube stations were closed by police, by closing the gates down. IN ONE STATION THOUGH PEOPLE WERE TRAPPED INSIDE. No matter that they were calling for help the police was not opening the gates, they would all suffocate in there. WE broke the gates and let the people free.... The demo after a point broke, it was not possible for the blocks to keep their formation. A lot from the left blocks started leaving as they could not stand this any more. This is when I left as well as I could hardly breath.
After the end of the demo there was tention in 2 different areas. People had squated the Polytechnic buidling near Exarchia and was fighting with the police from there. Also others got in the Law Deparment building of the University of Athens and were trapped in there as the police was throwing chemicals in the building. Up to 2 o clock in the night when I finally slept I had communication with people from inside the polytechnic buidling... they were not that many but were creating continiously trouble with the police.
This was the most violent demo ever, at least as far as I know. Some older ones compare it wil the violent incidents on 1967 just before the military junta started... It is difficult to really compare then though, we are talking for completely different demos on completely different times...
If you look at the threads that I have started on the boards here, you will also find threads about the demos against the education law and reports from the riots then. The riots even then were big, police violence was outrageous, but the public was not so violent as yesterday....
There is anger, there is a lot of concentrated anger everywhere. With who ever you talk, just ordinary people, you see it. A lot of people understand these demos during the last 3 days because they can understand the anger from the people....
2 student demos have been organized for today in Athens. I am not going to attend today, but I will be in Athens centre again on Wednesday for the workers demo. It has not been postponed but changed, the worker unions have finally called for a meeting in Syntagma square but with no demo. I am sure that a lot of people will be down ready for a demo though, no matter what they unions say.
The government had an urgent meeting yesterday in order to discuss about the situation. The prime minister today is visiting the President of Democracy, as well as meeting with the presidents of the other political parties. A lot of us believe that he is trying to call Greece in a "state of emergency" although the government officially denies it. If they do, the army may be on the streets then.....
The media even from yesterday started their "work". Hooligans, drug addicts, anarchists with full faces destroying Athens for no reason, they are even coming up with conspiracy theories that we are "controlled" by the opposition etc... The opposition political parties are trying to capitalize the public's anger in their own favour. NOBODY of course is speaking of the police violence within these few days... What the police are doing especially yesterday is out of any imagination.... People could easilly be killed yesterday.
More than 100 even more than 150 people were detained by police, around 80 are finally arrested the rest are released. It is difficult to say what is the correct number unfortunately... A lot of people got injured yesterday, some badly, I have no idea of how many though...
Athens indymedia was down all night yesterday because of heavy traffic so I have not found photos from yesterday... if they will be posted I will post them here.
A small conclusion of all the above.... we live in a "democratic" junta.
THE STATE AND THE BOSSES ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS
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