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Athens wracked by clashes ahead of teen's funeral

Fine arts students paint the street with red paint overlaid with outlines in black representing corpses in Athens on Monday. PHOTO: AFP

Police and students clashed outside the Greek parliament yesterday despite an appeal for calm by the president ahead of the funeral for a 15-year-old boy whose killing by police set off nationwide riots.

The clashes sparked calls from the opposition for the government to resign and seek a “public verdict” on the crisis.

“The government has lost public confidence,” Greek socialist opposition leader George Papandreou told his Pasok party deputies in parliament.

“The only thing it can give this country is to depart ... to seek a public verdict so that the people can give a solution,” he said.

The troubles entered a fourth day as Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis appealed for national unity to end the violence and the family of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos prepared to hold his funeral.

Authorities closed off many Athens streets after a third night of rampaging violence by youths who looted banks and stores.

Police, who made 87 arrests, said some protesters staged attacks with swords and slingshots stolen from a weapons shop.

Twelve more police were injured in Monday's clashes and at least 10 people were hospitalized with respiratory problems from clouds of tear gas that blanketed central Athens.

The unrest yesterday flared outside the parliament where a molotov cocktail was thrown at riot police during a protest by students.

Earlier tear gas battles were staged at the Athens Polytechnic which, along with the nearby Athens Law School, has been occupied by students protesting at the killing.

Streets around the universities were closed. Both colleges are in the Exarchia district where Grigoropoulos was fatally shot by police on Saturday, setting off the worst unrest to hit Greece in decades.

Thousands of teachers and students took to the streets of the capital to demand justice.

Approximately 2,000 protesters, led by the OLME teachers' union, marched on the Greek parliament carrying a large banner reading “Assassins, the government is the culprit.”

Burnt out rubbish bins, glass and paving slabs torn off sidewalks littered the streets from the third night of troubles on Monday when emergency services said fires were put out at 49 office buildings, 47 shops, 14 banks, 20 cars and three ministries.

The northern city of Salonika also saw major unrest. At least 70 stores and seven banks were set ablaze, the ANA news agency said. Several thousand students staged a protest march there yesterday.

The funeral of Grigoropoulos was to be held at the southern Athens suburb of Palio Faliro at 1pm.
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