Greek protesters take over radio, television outlets

Protracted rioting threatens the Greek economy and regional stability, the government says.

By David Montero

posted December 17, 2008 at 10:00 am EST

Unrest rippled throughout Greece Tuesday, with protesters hanging banners in Athens, attacking a police station, and hijacking the country's main television stations. The violence enters its second week as protesters hope to build momentum toward a planned nationwide strike on Thursday.

Violence has erupted in Greece since Dec. 6, when police shot and killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Exarchia, "a scruffy central district of Athens known as the anarchists' home base," the Economist explains.

In a pointed, symbolic call for more action, protesters yesterday wrapped the iconic Acropolis in Athens in a series of hung, huge banners, calling for "resistance," the BBC reports.

"Resistance" was written in four languages on one banner at the ancient site that dominates the Greek capital.

Another banner called for Europewide mass demonstrations on Thursday, when a nationwide strike is planned in Greece.

Elsewhere in Greece, bands of protesters clashed with police, Britain's Telegraph newspaper reports:

A group of around 100 hooded and masked protesters threw petrol bombs and rocks at the police station in the centre of the capital, damaging seven cars and a police bus...

Protesters also targeted police in other parts of the capital, but in nonviolent standoffs, the Associated Press (AP) adds.

In other parts of Athens Tuesday, schoolchildren are blocking streets to protest against the police killing of a 15-year-old boy on Dec. 6, which sparked a week of the country's worst riots in decades.

Dozens of teenagers gathered outside the capital's main court complex and a maximum security prison, stopping traffic but causing no other disturbance. Similar protests are planned in other parts of town later in the day.

In one of their most strategic moves, a group of protesters in northeastern Athens hijacked a prominent television station, according to Kathimerini, an English-language newspaper in Greece.

[A] group of around 30 protesters forced their way into the headquarters of state broadcaster ERT and interrupted a news broadcast featuring Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. For about a minute, the protesters stood in front of the camera holding banners reading "Stop watching, get out into the streets." ERT Chairman Christos Panagopoulos tendered his resignation over the incident but it was rejected by the government. "It is unacceptable for unidentified individuals to deprive others of their right to information," he said.

The continuing violence spells trouble for Greece's government and perhaps the region, CNN explains.

The killing sparked daily protests, including riots, which have thrown the country into turmoil and have become an outlet for simmering anger about the conservative government's handling of the economy, education and jobs.

The unrest is threatening the government's hold on power, with some opposition groups calling for fresh elections. Stores and international businesses have been attacked, and at least 280 people have been detained by police. Of those, 176 were arrested -- 130 of them for looting.

While the police have charged the two officers responsible for the teenager's death, the government's handling of the affair has only fueled the protests, reports the Economist.

Appeals for calm by Costas Karamanlis, the centre-right prime minister, were mostly ignored. Fearful of provoking even broader dissent, he refused to take such tough measures as imposing a curfew or ordering blanket arrests, on the ground that they might smack of the military dictatorship in the 1970s. Talks among political leaders in pursuit of a consensus on how to quell the unrest swiftly broke down.

Opinion polls show a large margin of disapproval with the government's reaction, Reuters reports:

An opinion poll published by Ethnos newspaper on Sunday said 83.3 percent of Greeks were unhappy with the government's response to the violence....

Another survey, in Kathimerini daily, put disapproval of the government at 68 percent with 60 percent of those polled saying the riots were a social uprising rather than an isolated outburst by a small fringe of violent protesters.

Recent revelations of a probe into a potential government corruption scandal have only added to public outrage, Agence France-Presse reports.

The release of a parliamentary inquiry into a land scandal, which has also generated widespread anti

government sentiment, threatened to increase the pressure on Karamanlis' embattled right-wing government.

Police were guarding the capital's courts, where six of the 86 people arrested throughout the unrest overnight on Saturday were appearing before magistrates.

Around 100 youths were camped outside with a banner showing solidarity with "state hostages."

As the riots continue, the Greek economy is taking a beating, reports Hurriyet, an English-language newspaper in Turkey.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis warned yesterday that 10 days of protests over the police killing of a teenager had hit the country's economy as he sought to galvanize his embattled government....

Addressing his ruling party's parliamentary group -- which has only a one-seat majority in the 300-seat house -- the Greek PM said images of chaos in Greece were hurting its borrowing clout amid the global economic downturn.

"The problem with the Greek public debt is related to the cost of borrowing... but it is exacerbated by the latest events which hurt our country's image and which do not do Greece justice," Karamanlis said, reported Agence France-Presse.