Protesters clash with police in Greece over shooting of unarmed teenager

[PressForNirvana]

Protesters clash with police in Greece over shooting of unarmed teenager

Riots break out in Athens during protest march to mark teenager's death

PUBLISHED : Monday, 08 December, 2014, 5:02am
UPDATED : Monday, 08 December, 2014, 5:02am

Associated Press in Athens

Riot police clash with protesters in Thessaloniki. Photo: Reuters

A march by thousands of people through central Athens to mark the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of an unarmed teenager quickly turned violent, as marchers damaged storefronts and bus stations and set fire to clothes looted from a shop.

Clashes continued late into Saturday night in the neighbourhood of Exarchia, a haven for extreme leftists and anarchists, with youths ambushing police with firebombs and rocks thrown from balconies. Police detained 211 people.

Clashes also broke out between police and demonstrators marching in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades after a crowd beat up two plainclothes policemen.

The marches were commemorating the December 6, 2008, police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the capital, which led to two weeks of the most violent rioting Greece had seen in decades.

Grigoropoulos and friends were in an argument with two police officers when one officer went to his patrol car, retrieved his gun and shot the youth.

Grigoropoulos' killer, police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas, is serving a life sentence.

On Saturday, about 5,000 people marched in Athens, passing the Greek Parliament and heading towards the spot where Grigoropoulos was killed. At one point, people broke into a Zara clothes shop and burned racks of clothes in the street.

The clashes were soon confined to Exarchia neighbourhood. Police cordoned off the neighbourhood's central square, firing tear gas and pepper spray.

The marches came at a time when nearly nightly violent protests were being held by supporters of one of Grigoropoulos' friends, jailed anarchist and convicted bank robber Nikos Romanos, 21. He was present when Grigoropoulos was killed and is now on a hunger strike, demanding prison leave to attend lectures after he passed university entrance exams.

"I won't back down. My response is: struggle until victory or struggle until death," he said.

Romanos, in hospital under police guard, has been fasting since last month, and doctors say his health is failing. He was jailed with three young men after a February 2013 bank robbery in which they took a hostage as they tried to escape. He was sentenced in October to 15 years and 11 months for the robbery and faces two trials as an alleged member of an armed anarchist group.

Additional reporting by Reuters