2008 December 6. 

on Saturday December 6 in the night at 21:30 in the center of Athens Alexandros Grigoropoulos was murdered by the cops , at the busy neiborhood Exarchia .Exarchia is a bohemian neighborhood . Most of the alternative youth hangs around there. It used to be a no - go area for police. Although things are more quiet now, compared to the 80s and 90s, the area is still not the most hospitable place for police. It is quite a common thing for police cars to be attacked by groups of people. Some even call the cops themselves in order to attack them. This has led the police to two different strategies for the area.  The murder happened after a small group of kids by a lot of people (connected with the anarchists scene) argued with the crew of a police car.  
The kids  didn't have or carry  with them any Molotov cocktails, stones or other weapons. There were many eyewitnesses, since the place has a lot of busy bars, and it is very crowded, especially on Saturday night. One of the policemen shot and killed the 15 years old young boy in cold blood.  The two policemen left the boy dead on the ground. The names of the policemen who killed the boy are Epaminodas Korkoneas (37 years old) and Vasilis Saraliotis (31 years old). Even the government didnt deny the facts 

The message of the murder has been spreaded really fast and people especially anarchists , autonomous and others  from the alternative scene  who were gathered near by the location of the murder(as  usual for saturday night ) had been mobilised really fast. 

More than 1000 anarchists/autonomous and others started  riots the same night around the Politechnical University in the center of Athens. That university has been a symbol of the Greek radical resistance for many years. The police arrested 7 persons but in fact without succeeding to stop the chaos , the rage and the fire. That was simply a message of the insurrection of the next days.

From the first moment the P. University occupied by anarchists and autonomous people. It used for the communication of the uprising with the citizens of Athens. A radio station set up functioning at FM frequencies and INTERNET as well  

7/12:At Decemeber 7 a Demonstration called by different groups speciafically from the anarchist , anti authoritarian scene and the extraparliamentary ultra left groups: 10.000 people literally occupied the city center . 

It was the largest march that the radical revolutionary insurrectionary tedencies  ever organized perhapss  since 1973 the year of the uprising against the fascist dictatorship and the change over the system into a new form of capitalist Democracy . 

The atmosphere was electrified from the begining, everybody knew that this was not going to be a peacfull marching but no one left. Along the way the scenery was full of anger, fires, chasing and gas bombs. A lot of the participants were beaten and splitted up but some of them managed to get to the central police station of Athens, the announced destination of the march. People were trying to reform affinity groups, some of them decided to go to the parliament instead. Finally after 3 hours They started gathering back to the occupied polytechnical school. As far as I know there where a few arrests and only a few injuries. 

Since the night of the murder many ATMs and banks were burnt to the ground, attacks on police stations around Greece have happened , universities occupations and  people were out fighting the state forces.

After that huge mobilization Riots started by members and fans of Athens football club (AEK) around OAKA  field. Students and people from autonomous groups occupied the second biggest university in the center , the university of Law.

At December 8  High school Students called for a demonstration in Athens with a chain of SMSs.
At 18:00: the same day a Demonstration took place as well  in the central offices of the university of Athens.
 The University of Finances occupied by students, anarchists, workers, young immigrants. Assemblies, creation of a blogspot, preparations to keep the university open in case of police attack so that people can meet there, discuss, secure from police...That was a really important process for the insurrection because the universities used for everybody to gather in the center of the city. 
The students called  for a general assembly of all the faculties in order to decide about a general strike and possible occupations of the universities.
02:00 at night: Street fights, barricades and riots in front of the Parliament, some of the biggest riots of the last days. City center smashed, big buildings on fire, riots continued. 86 people arrested and many in hospital because of injuries or suffocation.
Government was afraid of attacks against the house of the Prime Minister...
Government denied rumours about martial law. The next  day (9/12) the Prime Minister met with the President and the leaders of all parties to discuss the crisis.
At December 8 also all the Prisoners in Greek prisons after fighting for their rights one month ago with a huge collective hungerstrike, decided to abstain from the jail meals  as a sign of solidarity with the actions and the family of the comrade-child. 

At December 9 High school students' demonstration in front of parliament thrashed by the police. Ages 13-14 years old!
At 15.00 the same day: The funeral took place outside the city center. A thousand people gathered and when they saw the police and a riot was started. The inhabitants of the area attacked the police and told them to go away. Policemen arrested friends of the child when they tried to come out of the cemetery.
Attention: Policemen shot 15 times to disperse the crowd!
Students came back to the occupied Economic University and clashes with the police for about 1.5 hours.
 Riots erupt in the suburbs outside Athens. Immigrants and Roma youngsters attack the Zefyri police station, burn police cars and fight the police.
In Piraias an other big demo was going on the same time: schools were closed either by decision of both students and teachers or by occupation. Around 12:30 a growing march reached the central police station of Pireas, the 2nd largest in Athens. Already another minor police department in Pireas and the Shipping Ministry were already "visited". 3.000 students marched and attacked the police station throwing anything they could find: rocks, sticks, even oranges!
The front side of the police station is a total wreck, and all police cars and motorbikes are burned or destroyed. No other car or shop was harmed. 2 motorbikes were dragged in front of the police station and set on fire. More people joined from Pireas University and comrades from nearby areas and then 5 police squads came and attacked.
But students were full of rage and despite continued chasing they did not gave up. In a while a student was arrested and a fucking cop in civilian clothing started beating him in front of the crowd. This caused a mass attack from the people and a counterattack from the cops  , one man who protested against their attitude was arrested too. The central road closed  , students were fighting more than  5 hours!

10/12 General Strike!: 
At December 10 the people , groups from the radical forces declared the day as General strike. 
Syndicates and communist party sabotaged that strike. Televisions try to terrorise people from going out of their house. About 5000 people in demonstration, outside parliament some want to engage in riots. The Syndicates said :Ok our large demo made its point we call you to disperse in ten minutes...
6 days later autonomous and libertarians from the workers movement occupied the trade unions building
Attack with molotov cocktails against the Court where the cop was supposed to go.Police cars destroyed.
The lawyer of the cop who is a famous TV-person and a well known lawyer of drug dealers said : "This was an accident...The courtcase will say if Alexis had to die or not..." 
Riots continued in the center , immigrants burned a building, created barricades and fight with the police. Tear gas all around the center...

at December 11 the situation remained the same , chaos , fire , people on the streets incredibly huge demonstrations , occupations everywhere. 

12/12 Decemeber 12 In Athens and the surrounding regions: There was a march at Omonia square  at noon of thousands of people, which the police met with tear gas and flash bang grenades. At one point as the march passed by the offices of Kougias, the lawyer for the police officer who killed Alexandros, the offices were smashed. At Stadiou and Korai Streets, riot cops arrested and beat a 13 year old girl, journalists caught it on video and were themselves threatened and beaten by police.
Additionally there was a gathering at Syntagma Square at 3:30 p.m., a bicycle action at 9:30 p.m., and a sit-in at Syntagma Square at 10 p.m. There was a march at 10 a.m. of high school students in Palio Faliro which ended up at the police station there. At 1 p.m. there was a gathering of workers in psychiatric units for children and adolescents, in front of the police department in Chalandri. About 300 people marched in Agios Dimitrios around 8 p.m.
In other locations: In Ilioupoli, two young students at a protest blocking the road were struck by a car which then took off, and the license plates were later found to be unregistered.
A map of schools and universities taken over by students has been started at http://www.edopolytexneio.org/, while a radio station and a television station were even taken over for a short time, with information and statements about the murder of Alexandros and the use of police in service of state repression.
These and many other actions took place in the cold and rain. A new round of marches and gatherings had set for Saturday, December 13.
The police said that they are running out of tear gas, having used 4600 cannisters in this one week, and they are trying to get more from foreign sources. There are over 170 arrests so far in Athens alone.

Summary from the other cities 

I tried to described the situation durring the insurrection in Athens but since now I didnt describe how the insurrection developed in the rest of the country. 

Riots , huge , massive demonstrations , university occupations , attacks to police stations took place all around the country. From Sparta a small southern city (with the majority being supporter of the conservative government and other fascist parties) to Alexandroupolis in the north near to the border with the Turkish and Bulgarian states. Riots and so on in more than 20 cities took place. 

In Creta for instance that the movement is really strong , let the big cities in chaos. The same picture came from Thessaloniki and Patra. Thessaloniki is the second biggest city in Greece with a big squating movement  and strong influence of the autonomous groups. 

A really important fact that we must  describe is that the paramilitary organizations of the Nazis took action in Patra and other big cities as well by beating people with knives and threating people on the streets. They were well organized in affinity groups and tried to isolated persons on the streets. 

People who got arrested 

ATHENS: 50 immigrants are sure to have been put in pre-trial custody for 18 months in trials where there was no translator  for them and will likely be deported. On December 11 another 5 people were held in pre-trial custody [3 greeks and 2 immigrants] and on December 15 another 4.

THESSALONIKI: 21 arrests 
KOZANI: 34 arrests (3 in pre-trial custody at Grevena prisons - 15 of the 34 arrests were not announced by the cops, only verbally! - at least 7 minors of which two are Albanian immigrants 
PTOLEMAIDA: 7 arrests 
LARISA: 19 arrests that will be prosecuted according to the counter-terrorism law (9 of which minors - 4 adults in pre-trial custody, in Korydallos and Avlona prisons - according to lawyers and comrades).
PATRA: 21 arrests 
CHANIA: 7 arrests 
HERAKLION: 18 arrests (all released on bail and restrictive conditions - 4 are adults - the rest are minors who were arrested with their parents, the parents were accused of "neglecting a minor"! - according to comrades).
ZAKYNTHOS: 6 arrests .
VOLOS: 6 arrests 
During the Greek revolt , solidarity actions took place all around Europe as well , In Berlin , London , Endiburg , Hamburg , all around Italy and France , In Barchelona , Malga , Madrid , Granada , Ireland and Sweeden , Norway , Finland even in Budapest I heard that something finally happened. In USA and New Zeland , in Australia and Russia Federation. Some days later on the december 20 the greek anarchists called for a global action day that was totally successful with more that 30 cities involved 

To summarize what I described before and make a general conclution , as we saw and learnt from the uprinsing the anarchists ,the autonomous and the radical groups started the movement but then the students and the rest of the youth followed. Perhaps we could also include part of the workers union but not without having a strong critisim against them. Unfortunately the working class showed for one more time that is totally represented by the contra revolutionary forces like the communist party  , and the reformist unions insteed taking action with the people on the streets , ignored the message for radical social change and the message to over throw the government of the murders. For instance It is a remarkable fact that the KKE  tried with every possible way to passify the people. 
Insteed this fact ,  a new part especially young people  in our Society that we could possibly say that doesnt exist only in Athens but in whole Europe , the youth who sometimes is low educated and some others high educated but definitelly all of them live in insecure working conditions had support with every possible way the resistance . The precariat youth took action. Perhaps Greece is the first example of  a concious precarious movement with radical characteristics.  That it happened  because the unemployment is increasing. Athens is a theater of a paralog. One of the most expensive capitals in Europe with really low basic income. 

I think the previous lines were enough to describe what happened the hot days and night of the Greek December. But probably it is still unclear to you how that was possible to happen. How the radical movement became so well organized to can afford spreading  the message of riots in a large scale as well as how it is possible this movement to have a clear strategy and demands. In the following lines  I will try to give you a picture about the political structures of the movement in Greece as well as describing the political situation the previous decades. 

I would like to start with the fact that the murder of Alexis wasnt the first one in the Greek political history. The Greek state used this tactic of political murders for instance  the 20s and the period of the greek colonization movement , during the involvement of the country in the Balkan war. Several leftwing and communists were murdered or died in prisons only because of their existence and refuse to fight. After the civil war 45 -49 almost in every elections different paramilitaries were murdering individuals in order to terrify the people and give a clear message who must come to the power. In the 60s for instance the young  student: 21years old sotiris petroulas murdered by fascsists from the circle  of the king and the pacifist Grigoris Lambrakis by other fascists some years later. After the change over of the system and the collapse of the dictatorship 1967-74 , we can find a diversity of murders and tactics of repression by the state against the radical movement. Kanelopoulou 1980 , koumis some months later , the 14 years old boy Kaltezas at 1985 , the high school teacher Deboneras during the student revolt in 1991 was murdered by Nazis . In the case of Kaltezas had shot by a cop with the same brutal way. 

As everybody can understand the Greek political history is full of repression and opression  like the rest of the world and the history of the states in general. 

In this point I would like to add more details about the political perspectives , history and structures of the greek radical movement. I would like to start with the extraparliamentary left because its history is older than the anti authoritarian movement who only it developed after the 74. In the 60s a diversity of trotksists and maoist groups organized the resistance against the military dictatorship.The majority of these groups were based in the universities and they really fast organized an elegal underground mechanism. Small groups appear all around the country but the leadership commities were mostly in exile especially in north Italy. The most of the groups were splited from the communist party. The communists were always just a representative of the state bourocrat capitalists of Moscow and their role was always connected with the contra revolutionary forces. We cant really make the same conclusion of a lot of their members. But we can definitely make this statement for the leadership of the party. 

That was briefly the history of the ultra left the tender years. 

About the anarchist antiauthoritarian movement . In the 60s definitely the anarchist movement didnt exist as a scene in Greece . But Greek people definitely joined and worked with Guy Debord for example in Paris or others in w. Germany autonomous groups and the horisontal left and young green movement. The anarchist scene in Greece started after the military dictatorship generally as a subculture movement connected with the punk culture. The anarchist scene in Greece started specifically in the big cities. Athens and Thessaloniki maybe Patra and some other smaller cities as well. The political principles  of the anarchists that time more or  less were no states no masters , fuck the police and so on. An important role for the anachist movement started when some of the armed groups like ELA or other smaller ones also groups from the left  splited. Then a lot of their members start exploring and finding attractive the anarchist point of view. In the late 70s and the whole 80s anachists caused riots and university occupations. In this point we must remark that the students movement was really strong. A lot of people also joined the anarchist movement as an answer to the bullshit and the role of the KKE. 

In the 90s the anarchist movement became more sophisticated , it started to develop political positions   and become increasingly a threat for the state. After the collapse of the eastern block for instance and the split of the communist organizations the anarchists became a serious influential movement into the youth.

All the 90s we can find a diversity of groups located to neighborhoods connected with the  anarchist ideas as well as a assembly in the center of Athens for example of various groups from the neighborhoods.
An other important fact to understand how the greek movement developed is that Greece is the country with reforms in the education system every 3 or 4 years. . This caused a lot of anger and formed an social opposition into the high school students and universities. Especially with the Bologna declaration or the government plans for exposing the university asylum , occupations took place in high schools and universities. In the universities more than a year with the 90% of the faculties occupied.  
Also an other newbie movement generally developed in the 00s is the environmental movement. This movement is located also in the neighborhoods and it is resisting against the local problems. This is a real popular massive movement with just simple citizens involve. All around the country different movement against government plans for destroying the natural environment or privatize green spaces and parks. 
The movement for social and political rights especially for the immigrants is also good organized . With different grassroots anarchist and left organization work on this topic .
In the students movement all the decisions are taken horizontally in big assemblies .  This is an official way after the dictatorship. 
Most important point the local initiatives      

the antiglobalization movement inspired the greek scene with a lot of new ideas , PGA and Social Forums also become a daily routine , discussion about what is going on in the world.

An other important structure of the movement in Greece are the squats , social centers .

The squatting movement is getting stronger the last years  with a lot of new squats in the big cities. More than 500 squats are located into the universities and are used for organizing public events. 

The social centers are not squatted but rented spaces. Both squats and social centers have regular weekly meetings open to everybody to participate. 


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 It is Beautiful! In one night “reality”, “normality” died...
It will happen to your countries soon.
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