May 3, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Harsh dispersal of student demonstrations. 8 students injured


Shocking images from the center of Athens, with the bloodied heads of students at a mass rally against private universities. Ten people were injured in serious incidents.

It is noted that there was no reason for the police to attack the protesters, since the bulk of the students arrived at the parliament building while the debate on the private universities bill was ongoing.

Chemical “war” and broken heads of students at Syntagma

Tension grew and the police began using tear gas, simultaneously beating the protesters half to death. At least eight students were injured, as evidenced by photographs and videos.

Cameras showed broken heads, blood on the pavement and ambulances rushing to pick up injured students. Journalists also suffered for the company. One of the reporters was hit on the head with a “democratizer,” although the policeman saw that he had a camera in his hands and was wearing a vest with the word “press” written on it. According to police, one MAT fighter was wounded.

As seen in the video, police brutality resulted in a head injury to one of the students participating in the march. “The attack was furious and brutal,” said the student, frightened by the ferocity of the MAT attack. The moments of horror that he experienced are captured in his words for the publication “Στο Κόκκινο”: “When we went up to the parliament building, we were surrounded by police from above and below. Fortunately, we maintained our composure and were not trampled(…), he said. – Wherever you turn to look around, there are people with red eyes, wounded, unable to see (…). The attack was furious and brutal.”

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4QkW4xoZva

The incidents began when a group of protesters tried to enter the square in front of the Monument to the Unknown Soldier.

The participation of students in the rally is massive. Despite the incidents that took place in front of the Monument to the Unknown Soldier, demonstrators intend to remain outside Parliament until the bill is passed this evening. Students from all universities in the country have been continuing their various actions against the creation of “non-state, commercial universities” and express their disagreement with the privatization of education.

Parliament noted the riots at Syntagma

While serious incidents occurred outside the parliament building, the government fired at opposition parties. Tellingly, Education Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis showed a photo from the Unknown Soldier incidents and asked opposition parties to condemn the Molotov cocktail throwing, without saying a word about the brutal police crackdown and the students affected.

Syriza’s deputy parliamentary spokesman Christos Giannoulis condemned police violence and the use of chemicals, while State Minister Makis Voridis responded provocatively, asking opposition MPs to “grow up quickly”:“You are a government of men with axes.”

Giannoulis’ reaction to Makis Voridis’s words was sharp, he called it “cowardly attack by MAT” with chemicals on thousands of students who came from all over Greece to shout: “Stop trashing the constitution and democracy, don’t chop down our rights with an axe.”

Mr. Voridis, smiling ironically, listened as Christos Giannoulis told him: what is happening now on the streets of Athens is “arrogance, vulgarity and vulgarity of the government.”

“The children are shouting that we should not spoil our future, and you are responding with the police. You have no other democratic weapon, – added the MP from SYRIZA, – you are telling a blatant lie, and your only alternative is to leave! Here’s the door!”.

“You probably thought that an ax was needed for chopping wood, and not for the thread of democracy. We cannot reason in terms of Voridis and Georgiadis. Finally, get down to serious business, protect your party from the axes of Mr. Voridis.”– Christos Giannoulis addressed the government.





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