Riots in Greece in 2008

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Montage of various recordings

The riots in Greece in 2008 began on December 6th, when the 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos ( Greek Αλέξανδρος Γρηγορόπουλος ) was killed in Athens by the policeman Epaminondas Korkoneas ( Greek Επαμεινώνδας Κορκονέας ) by a shot in the body. Every year in Greece on the day of Grigoropoulos' death there is a demonstration against arbitrary police force.

trigger

Memorial to Alexandros Grigoropoulos, 2008

The incident occurred in the alternative district of Exarchia after a clash between police and autonomous . According to the police officer, a group of people attacked him and his colleague with stones. He then fired three warning shots, one of which hit the youth as a ricochet . According to witnesses, the young man, who came from affluent circles, got into a verbal argument with a police officer on the way from a name-day party , whereupon he pulled his gun and shot the young person deliberately.

consequences

The two officers were suspended and taken into custody, the prosecutor was investigating manslaughter and aiding and abetting manslaughter. According to the perpetrator's lawyer, the autopsy revealed that the deadly projectile was a ricochet. According to an unconfirmed ballistic evaluation, the bullet was not - as claimed by the police officer - fired into the air. Grigoropoulos was buried on December 9th in the Paleo Faliro cemetery. Epaminondas Korkoneas, who shot and killed Alexandros Grigoropoulos, was charged by a Greek court on June 12, 2009 with murder and his colleague Vassilis Saraliotis with complicity. For fear of unrest, the trial was first moved to Chalkida and later to the small town of Amfissa , which is even further from the capital . In October 2010, the local court found the crime of direct intentional murder to be proven and sentenced Korkoneas to life imprisonment, while Saraliotis received ten years imprisonment. Korkoneas' defense against it had pleaded negligent homicide .

Riots

Students threw stones and smoke bombs at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki , December 8, 2008
Destroyed building in Monastiraki, Athens, December 7, 2008

In the riots that began on Saturday evening, 24 police officers were injured and 31 shops, 9 banks and 25 cars were damaged or burned down. The unrest continued throughout the weekend with several thousand mostly young people involved and spread to Thessaloniki , Ioannina , Komotini , Patras , Tripoli , Volos , Trikala , Mytilini , Agrinio , Kavala , Corfu , Piraeus , Chania , Heraklion , Rhodes , Karditsa , Lamia , Stylida , Drama , Xanthi and Langadia . On Monday, around 500 shops, banks, car dealerships and government buildings were badly damaged and 40 people were injured.

In total, the riot caused damage of over 100 million euros up to December 8th . On that day the unrest spread to Paphos and Nicosia in Cyprus . The Greek embassy in London was attacked and the Greek consulate in Berlin was occupied by demonstrators for a few hours. The riots continued in the evening and around 4,000 Autonomists managed to take control of parts of downtown Athens, where they burned down many shops and objects, including a four-story Olympic Airways building , a bank and the 20-meter high Christmas tree. 100 shops were looted in Thessaloniki. According to the police spokesman, 89 people had already been arrested on December 9, 2008 for attacks on the police, vandalism and arson and 79 others had been taken into custody. In a summary writing on December 6 is less than 284 arrested in the period starting 2008 until January 14th 2009, including in Athens alone 111 people, of which in January 2010, two pre-trial detention were sitting.

While the clashes in Athens gradually subsided on December 10, militant actions took place in several European cities such as Rome, Bologna and Madrid. After the protests were increasingly limited to sit-ins , demonstrations and rallies over the next few days, on the night of December 14, a week after the fatal shooting, there were renewed attacks on banks, ministries, police officers and shops in Athens.

The unabated rallies and demonstrations with several thousand participants culminated on December 18 with renewed riots in Athens and Thessaloniki. Specific demands of the manifestants concerned the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Karamanlis , who admitted mistakes. After further riots and falling polls by Karamanlis and his conservative ruling party Nea Dimokratia , observers assumed a major government reshuffle, early elections or a change of government, but there was only a minor cabinet reshuffle.

aftermath

In February 2009 there were a number of explosives and arson attacks on the homes of politicians and judges as well as banks and police stations. The letters of confession related to Grigoropoulos' death.

On December 4, 2009, to mark the anniversary, high schools and universities were occupied and sticks, stones and oranges were thrown at police patrols and guards. In Hamburg at 11 p.m. the previous night, police station 16 was attacked with stones by the group “Koukoulofori” (Greek for “hooded wearers” or “hooded”), referring to Grigoropoulos' death, and two vehicles were set on fire. The unrest in Greece continued the next day. About 160 people were arrested.

background

As one of the reasons for the violence in large parts of the Greek youth, the SWR correspondent Ulrich Pick in the ARD - Tagesschau analyzes the long pent-up frustration about poor future prospects. Despite good qualifications, they usually only find temporary and transitional jobs; we are talking about the 700-euro generation. On the other hand, the political establishment from ND and PASOK only stand in their values ​​for the well-paid sections of society, whose politics no longer find faith in the younger generation because of unredeemed promises. On the other hand, politicians have closed their eyes for years in the face of the emergence of quasi law-free city quarters, also inhabited by autonomous people, probably in the awareness of the inadequate training and de-escalation skills of the Greek police, who are considered to be extremely rough. This is said to be close to right-wing and xenophobic circles.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa on December 9th, the Greek author Vassilis Vassilikos said: “This is not a political, but a social revolt. On the streets is the generation of those who earn 700 euros a month and those who know that they will only have a good 500 euros. [...] Technologies have changed everything. This isn't a virtual revolution, but it was the emails and text messages that spread the revolt so quickly across the country and gave the signal: 'Get up! Rebeled! '".

In 1985, the youth Michalis Kaltezas was killed by a police officer in Exarchia , which had led to similar events. Activists from Thessaloniki accuse the police of having shot young people in 1998 and 2003 without need.

For several months now, there have been fire bombing attacks on banks, offices of the ruling party and police vehicles in Athens . According to the political scientist Heinz-Jürgen Axt , anarchists, autonomous people and students have enjoyed a latent sympathy among the population since their uprising against the military dictatorship , which ruled from 1967 to 1974. The two big parties, on the other hand, stand for nepotism , fraud and corruption, the effect of which is a strong disaffection with the state and politics. In 2008 as in 1973, the Polytechnio was a basis for the protest movement.

literature

  • Kostas Kolimenos: Schrei im December Book and DVD in the library of resistance series, March 2010, Laika-Verlag . Hamburg, ISBN 978-3-942281-72-0
  • AG Schwarz, Tasos Sagris, Void Network: We are an image of the future - on the street we write history , October 2010, Laika-Verlag. Hamburg, ISBN 978-3-942281-82-9

Web links

Commons : Riots in Greece 2008  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
 Wikinews: Serious Riots in Greece  - Message

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Greece: Budget adopted by Deutsche Welle, December 8, 2014
  2. ↑ Violent protests: Rioting again in the center of Athens ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Time online; Retrieved December 9, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit.de
  3. ↑ Σοκάρουν οι μαρτυρίες . Mega Channel . December 7th, 2008. Archived from the original on December 8th, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 8, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.megatv.com
  4. ^ Hail of stones in front of the courthouse . December 10, 2008. Retrieved December 11, 2008.
  5. ↑ Murder charges against police officers who shot the 15-year-old by (red) on derstandard.at, accessed June 16, 2009
  6. ↑ The Standard of November 10, 2009
  7. ↑ Police officer gets life sentence, n-tv.de on October 11, 2010
  8. ↑ Police officer must be imprisoned for life for murder, ARD on October 11, 2010 ( Memento from October 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Fresh riots erupts in Greek cities BBC News Europe, accessed December 8, 2008
  10. ↑ Grecia, Battaglia a Patrasso , Repubblica Radio TV . December 8, 2008. 
  11. ↑ Χιονοστιβάδα διαμαρτυριών για το θάνατο του 16χρονου μαθητή , in.gr . December 8th, 2008. Archived from the original on December 9th, 2008 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.in.gr 
  12. ↑ "Καζάνι που βράζει" η Αθήνα ( Memento from December 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) ikypros (Greek)
  13. ↑ a b Greece before a restless night time online, dpa accessed on December 8, 2008
  14. ↑ a b Riots plunge Greece's government into severe crisis Spiegel Online; Retrieved December 8, 2008
  15. ↑ a b Riots on the third night in a row DerStandard.at, accessed on December 9, 2008
  16. ↑ Situation and overview of the prisoners of the December revolt in one revolt always revolt… The Angry Brigade 2009, p. 37
  17. ↑ Freedom for Alexus by Alexus Demeniake's Solikommittee, January 20, 2010
  18. ^ The riots are spreading abroad over time online, accessed on December 11, 2008
  19. ^ New riots in Athens on December 14, 2008
  20. ^ Renewed riots in Athens in NZZ Online, December 19, 2008
  21. ↑ cf. Jansen, Michael: "Merry Crisis and a Happy New Fear" ( Memento from December 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) at tagesschau.de, December 21, 2008
  22. ↑ cf. Another riots in Athens at focus.de, December 21, 2008
  23. ↑ Press review: Attack series in Athens on Indymedia, accessed February 20, 2009
  24. ↑ Attacks against police in Athens in defiance to PM's plea for calm on libcom, org, accessed December 5, 2009
  25. ↑ Attack in Hamburg: Revenge for Greek boys? temporarily online, accessed December 6, 2009
  26. ↑ Receipt for wrong policy . ARD . December 8, 2008. Archived from the original on December 9, 2008. Retrieved on December 8, 2008.
  27. ↑ a b Manfred Ertel, Daniel Steinvorth: Uprising of the disappointed in Der Spiegel, No. 51 / December 15, 2008 p. 108
  28. ^ In the intensive care unit , December 5, 2009 by Gerd Höhler on tagesspiegel.de of December 5, 2009
  29. ↑ “We waited for the opportunity to explode.” La Stampa, December 9, 2008. Indymedia translation , accessed December 15, 2008
  30. ↑ Greece rocked by second day of anti-police riots Mail & Guardian, accessed on November 3, 2018
  31. ^ Declaration of the general assembly of the occupied theater school in Thessaloniki ( memento of December 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), reflected on the FAU website, accessed on December 9, 2008
  32. ↑ Bombs Target Greek Bnk Buildings; No Injuries -Police ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. beurs.nl October 31, 2008, accessed December 8, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.beurs.nl
  33. ↑ Why the violence? Der Tagesspiegel, accessed on December 10, 2008