12/9/08

Funeral of slain teen brings more violence to Athens

By ANTHEE CARASSAVA and RACHEL DONADIO International Herald Tribune,
The New York TimesPublished: December 9, 2008

ATHENS: Thousands of protesters marched on central Athens on Tuesday, facing off against police in riot gear and shouting anti-government slogans as Greece buried the teenager whose shooting by the police on Saturday set off some of the worst rioting here in recent years.

Violence erupted after the funeral of the teenager, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, 15, was held in the southern Athens suburb of Paleo Faliro.

The hour-long funeral went calmly but afterwards, as the hundreds of people who had gathered at the cemetery began to leave, bands of youths turned violent, hurling gasoline bombs and rocks as riot police moved in from the edges. Riot police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.

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Peacenik was reluctant to post Ilargi's post today. It is too bleak. Instead Peacenik is wondering about these riots in Greece. There also have been recent riots in Kenya and Zimbabwe. And in France in 2007. And today workers are occupying a factory in Chicago. In Guelph, Ontario, anarchists recently broke some windows in a Macdonalds. In spite of the enormous firepower of the state, citizens seem to be willing to take to the streets and protest. Now contemplate 5 or 6 million newly unemployed in the U.S. and Canada in the next several months. Imagine empty shelves in stores and empty tanks at gas stations. Maybe Peacenik just should have posted Ilargi after all.