The Greek state shows how to use Covid19 to control public protests and demonstrations. Since 2008 after the murder of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer, the people of Greece have marked his cold bloody murder by mass gatherings, and march to the place where the police officer cold bloodedly gun down the 15 year old teenager. This year the state uses the pandemic to stop this annual commemoration of a child murder. A massive police presence surrounded the memorial to his shooting. This was a mass gathering of heavily armed police formed to stop a mass gathering of unarmed people. The people of Greece have shown in the past that they can hold mass gatherings while keeping social distancing, but the state was more interested in putting a stop to this annual remembrance of a police killing than anything to do with the pandemic. This is a repeat of the police violence launched against the annual march and demonstration marking the 1973 student uprising that eventually lead to the overthrow of the Greek Military junta.
The state will do all in its power to quash any thought of marking events against authority, this pandemic has given them carte blanche in dealing with public protests. It is a right we relinquish at our peril. No doubt state's across the globe will do likewise drawing on the "emergency" laws to stop the spread of Covid19, to stop mass public gatherings and protests. All for your own good of course.
Police in Greece’s capital have detained dozens of people who defied a coronavirus-related ban to take part in the annual commemoration of the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a police officer in 2008.
Some 4,000 police officers were deployed on Sunday to prevent gatherings and will continue to do so until the early hours of Monday.
Protesters shout slogans after being detained in Athens during a rally
marking the killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos 12 years ago [Yorgos
Karahalis/AP Photo]
Footage posted online showed riot police on Sunday afternoon entering apartment buildings in Exarcheia, a neighbourhood in central Athens, to flush out would-be protesters. One video showed officers throwing stun grenades inside a building. Another clip showed police pushing photojournalists and other accredited members of the media.
A picture of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, right, at an impromptu shrine at
the site of the fatal shooting in Athens 12 years ago [File: Lefteris
Pitarakis/AP Photo]
The scenes reminded the heavy-handed tactics adopted by police last month when they violently broke up a peaceful rally commemorating a 1973 student uprising against Greece’s then-military rulers.
Over 100 people have been detained in Greece’s capital who gathered to mark the 12th anniversary of police killing of a 15-year-old boy on Sunday, local media reported. Tension rose as police tried to disperse demonstrators that gathered in central Athens where the shooting took place, according to Athens-Macedonian News Agency.
The government had announced a ban on public gatherings of more than three people as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Some protesters tried to hold banners, but where stopped by the police.
Meanwhile, the Greek police said five policemen were injured following a mob attack outside the police station of Kolonos, a northwest suburb of Athens, on Saturday. Nearly 80 people had been arrested, they said.
"Yesterday, on December 5, 2020 afternoon, nearly 80 people, with covered faces, wearing helmets and full-face hoods, tried to approach and attack the Kolonos police station," the police said.
No comments:
Post a Comment