More reasons to get mad

I just came across this account (and here to read it in Greek) of the arrest of a Greek student who happened to be in the centre of Athens at the time of the riots last week via Q-Sputnik's blog. Myrto, who is doing her postgraduate studies in England was shopping with her mother when she was beaten and arrested for the hideous crime of speaking back to a member of the MAT (Greek riot police).

"Seconds later, her mother witnessing the whole thing, four policemen attacked her. They kicked her on the back, knocking her down on the street. Myrto weighs no more than 50 kilos. She started shouting and swearing. Her mother yelled in panic and pleaded with them to leave her daughter alone.

Some of them were trying to stop her from running to her daughter, while the others (the four policemen) had already twisted Myrto’s arm behind her back, holding her down, on the street. They repeatedly kicked her on the stomach, the legs, the ribs, swearing at her with vulgar and blatantly sexist words!"

I, too went through a similar ordeal when I was attacked by the riot police during a peaceful demo last year. Taking pictures seemed to provoke them to violence and as Myrto's account points out;

"Myrto told them she came to her home city to spend Christmas with her mother, but they wouldn’t believe her – in fact they suspected her of being a foreign journalist, a “rat” etc...
They saw the photos she had taken in the last couple of days and said they would seize the memory card of the camera, but Myrto did not hand it in. The camera was a fairly sophisticated one - Digital SLR – which made them suspect her and repeat their accusations and ironic comments: how come she had such a good camera, since she was not a journalist, how could she afford it, how much did it cost and so on..."

However, whilst I was injured badly enough for the hospital doctors to want to keep me overnight I did not undergo the terrible harrassment that Myrto got whilst being questioned;

"The officers systematically tried to break her morale, humiliating her, verbally and psychologically assaulting her. They would put their faces right in front of hers, almost touching her, calling her… things; they vividly described the “sexu@l intercourse” they would have with her. They pulled her hair repeatedly.

When she asked if they would be long, one of them told her to ask them again later, when all of them would be f…ing her."

And people wonder why there has been such violence over the last two weeks. Time and time again these uniformed thugs have beaten and killed with immunity. I've lost count of the number of accounts of people who have suffered at their hands, been assaulted, belittled and demeaned by some power hungry demi - nazi with a club and a badge.

I know that this could all be a hoax as I have not been able to find the person's original post, however, there have been a number of other similar incidents captured on video (see here) in the past and the details of the whole procedure seemed accurate enough (and as I have witnessed it myself I am in a position to judge better than most). Also the police here has a long, inglorious history of violence (see here for a damning 2007 Council of Europe report) and footage of recent police violence prompted Amnesty International to complain about their behavior.

Events in Greece -Time for reflection

On the left the Greek minister for culture, Mixalis Liapis and on the right Prokopis Pavopoulos, the law and order minister.

Many people across the world will have been shocked by the scale of violence witnessed over the last 13 days in Greece. Scenes of intense confrontations with the police and a level of destruction that you normally wouldn't associate with a country famed for its natural beauty and long history.

However, away from the beaches and the museums there are has been a growing sense of despair amongst people, especially those under 25 that the country they live in has no place for them. A feeling that those in charge politically and economically lead lives cocooned by wealth and family connections which leave them indifferent to the problems faced by the rest of the population.

Cronyism, corruption and lack of accountability have eaten away at people's respect for institutions at the heart of Greek life. A fact that was vividly illustrated this week by two decisions which added to the impression that those in authority are above the law.

The first concerned the parliamentary report on the Vatopedi corruption scandal. The case which involved the dubious acquisition of state owned property by the Vatopedi Orthodox monastery involved several senior government officials and cost hundreds of millions of tax payer's money. However, despite a deluge of evidence indicating the misuse of office by high ranking government members the report concluded that there were no grounds for criminal charges.

This is simply the latest in a series of 45 scandals that have come to light since the New Democracy party came to power in 2004 on a platform of clean government.

The other case which has helped undermine faith in the Greek justice system and especially ELAS (the national police force) was the verdict in the Augustinos Dimtrios case which came out last week. Dimitrios, a university student from Cyprus was savagely beaten by eight police officers in an incident which was captured on live TV. Although the officers involved were found guilty none was sentenced to a jail term, instead they received a suspended sentence.

This has added to the sense, amply supported by numerous cases of police violence that law enforcement officials in Greece operate above the law, accountable to no one. One of the reasons why the clashes between protesters and riot police over the last week have been so fierce is the anger provoked by the possibility that the officer charged with killing 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos will walk free.

A toxic mix, of unemployment, disillusionment and frustration has driven young people onto the streets time and time again, it has led them to occupy 600 schools nationwide and hundreds of university departments. As of yet there has been no concerted demands for a program of political change, however, this simply reflects the fact that there are so many disparate participants involved in the protests. The speed and scale of the reaction has been such that there is no one group of people or organisation that can truthfully say that represent the demonstrator's will at the present time.