2008 Greek Riots - The Riots and Political Crisis - Second Week

Second Week

On Monday, 15 December 2008 students gathered outside the General Attica Police Directorate in central Athens. The riot police chose to dissolve the protest through violence after some of the demonstrators threw eggs against one riot police squad. Many of the demonstrators were of school-age. Several newspapers report that the protesters were provoked by policemen. In Piraeus, approximately 300 students rallied outside the local Korydallos Prison and taunted the police who fired tear gas to disperse them. According to teachers' unions, some 600 schools were under occupation, while 150 university facilities across the country had been taken over according to the Greek Ministry of Education. In Ioannina, the local public radio station was occupied by students and far-leftist groups. Rallies and demonstrations have also taken place in Chania, Heraklion, Larissa and Thessaloniki.

On Tuesday, 16 December 2008 rallies and protests took place outside many police stations in Athens and Piraeus. Early in the afternoon, masked youths emerged from the university complex in Zografou and firebombed nearby Athens' riot police headquarters. Six police officers were injured and ten vehicles were burnt. Meanwhile a group of around 30 protesters infiltrated the studios of public broadcaster ERT and interrupted a news broadcast featuring Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis. For about a minute, the protesters stood in front of the camera holding banners reading “Stop watching, get out into the streets.” ERT Chairman Christos Panagopoulos tendered his resignation over the incident but it was rejected by the government. “It is unacceptable for unidentified individuals to deprive others of their right to information,” he said.

On Wednesday, 17 December 2008 a rally was held outside the capital's main courthouses, where youths threw eggs and fruit at the police. There was also one demonstration organised by the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) in central Athens from Omonoia Square to the Greek Parliament, drawing around 5000 people. Student protesters evaded security guards at the Acropolis of Athens and unfurled two giant pink banners over a wall near the Parthenon to rally support for continued demonstrations. "Thursday 18/12 demonstrations in all Europe," one banner read, while the other simply bore the message, "Resistance," in Greek, English, Spanish and German. "We chose this monument to democracy, this global monument, to proclaim our resistance to state violence and demand rights in education and work," "(We did it) to send a message globally and to all Europe." said the protestors. Government spokesman, Evangelos Antonaros, said this protest was "inexcusable" and accused the protesters of tarnishing Greece's image abroad. In Kaisariani, near the riot police headquarters that were targeted by youths on Tuesday, a group of anarchists torched a police bus. The only person in the bus, the driver, managed to escape unhurt. In another protest, about 40 people – including workers, immigrants and unemployed citizens – occupied the offices of the country's main labor union, the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE). The union's president, Giannis Panagopoulos, said the protest was mistargeted: “The GSEE does not govern this country”. A protest was also held outside the Prefecture of Thessaloniki offices and the Ministry for Macedonia–Thrace which is also based in Thessaloniki. Late that night, a homemade explosive device planted outside a branch of Eurobank in the Thessaloniki district of Kalamaria damaged the building’s facade when it detonated. A similar device smashed the windows of a local Citizens’ Information and Service Center (KEP). In Ioannina, the town hall was occupied, while in Chania, a local television station remained under occupation by protesters for about 1 hour.

On Thursday, 18 December 2008 demonstrations took place in central Athens, more than 12,000 protesters crowded the streets near the Greek parliament in a peaceful demonstration in central Athens which turned violent when a group of protesters broke away from the rally and threw rocks and firebombs at police and buildings near Parliament, overturned a car and set fire to trash cans, splashed the police with red paint and tried to burn down the city’s main Christmas tree which had just been replaced after being torched during last weeks riots. The police responded with tear gas and flash grenades, and drove the rioters back toward the administrative headquarters of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the university’s School of Law, Economics and Political Sciences. After another round of pitched battles between masked rioters and the police, several hundred protesters entered the School of Law, Economics and Political Sciences. Christmas shoppers fled the streets and retailers rolled down their shutters as protesters smashed store fronts and burned at least four cars. Demonstrations also took place in Thessaloniki where protesters gathered outside the Ministry for Macedonia–Thrace. Rallies and protests also took place in Patras, Tripoli, Chania and Trikala. Some labour unions stopped work in solidarity with the demonstrators. The work stoppage by the air traffic controllers forced Olympic Airlines to cancel 28 flights and postpone 14. Hospitals were also operating with very limited staff.

On Friday, 19 December 2008 a protest took place outside the Greek parliament, and a solidarity concert outside the administrative building of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. More than 1500 people demonstrated peacefully in the western suburb of Athens, Peristeri following another shooting of a 16-year-old on Wednesday, 17 December, night. The teenager was struck in the hand by a bullet fired by an unidentified assailant while sitting in a park, outside a local high school with friends. The police admitted that they had made a mistake in their initial statement that the boy was hit by an air-gun pellet. Tests revealed it was either a .38 Special or .357 Magnum bullet. Officers are investigating the incident, anxious to disprove rumors that an off-duty or undercover policeman fired the shot. A police spokesman said that no officers were in the area at the time of the shooting and an investigation was under way. Masked youths attacked the French Institute in Athens with firebombs, "Spark in Athens. Fire in Paris. Insurrection is coming," read one graffiti spray-painted onto the building's walls in French. Another, written in Greek, read "France, Greece, uprising everywhere". Later on Friday, about 50 protesters interrupted the official premiere of the Greek National Theater, holding up banners urging people to join the demonstrations.

On Saturday, 20 December 2008 about 150 youth attacked the Christmas tree at Syntagma Square in central Athens, at around 16.00, hanging trash bags from its branches before clashing with riot police. The square was cleared within two hours. At least three news photographers were injured by police batons. The Christmas tree protest had been advertised as part of a day of events in Greece and around the world to commemorate Grigoropoulos' shooting. On Saturday evening, masked men broke into the building housing the offices of Tiresias SA, a company that keeps records of delinquent debtors and cardholders, and firebombed the company's offices. The fire was extinguished but the company's offices were destroyed. Rioters, using the National Technical University of Athens as a base, launched attacks against police, throwing rocks and petrol bombs and erecting roadblocks. In Thessaloniki a group of anarchists briefly occupied a radio station and a theater before disrupting and threw cakes and candy at Mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos and one of his deputies during an open-air charity event near the theater. Later, a group emerged from the same theater and attacked a Nativity scene, throwing away Christ's figure.

On Sunday, 21 December 2008 in the early hours of the morning, unidentified hood-wearing assailants threw petrol bombs at the police academy in the west Athens district of Nea Philadelphia six police vehicles were torched, without causing any casualties. The vehicles that were parked outside the building of the police accounting department at Patriarchou Constantinou street, also suffered damage in the attack. At around the same time, rioting and clashes with riot police continued in the area around the National Technical University of Athens and the University of Thessaloniki, with protesters again lobbing petrol bombs at police.