Chief of police resigns over book presentation raid in Athens

Libcom.org Oct 22 2009

The Chief of Police of Greece, Mr Tsiatouras, has resigned after the
demand of the Minister of Public Order over the book presentation police
raid in Athens, while thousands march against the police-state imposed in
the last 15 days in Exarcheia.

On Thursday 22/10 morning the Minister of Public Order Mr Chrisochoidis
has demanded and got the resignation of the Chief of Police of Greece, Mr
Tsiatouras, over the police raid of a book presentation the previous night
that led to scores of detentions of unsuspecting citizens, amongst which
Mitsos Papachristou, a leading figure of the resistance against the
Colonels' Junta and the 1973 Uprising. Mr Chrisochoidis has apologised
once more about the incident but his attitude has been received with mixed
feelings as many see it as just a chance for him to get rid of a high
ranking officer of the last government, and not a sincere move against
police arbitrariness which if anything has skyrocketed since the new,
Socialist, government was placed in charge of the country 15 days ago.

Mr Chrisochoidis is widely considered to be in a personal battle with the
revolutionary and social antagonistic movement that has swept the country
since the December Uprising in 2008. Having gone public in the last week
claiming, on the one hand, that he is friends with anarchists and shares
many of their ideas, and on the other hand that anarchists are simply
"economic criminals hiding behind a quasi-ideological veil", his
reliability is in serious doubt. His latest delusional statement is that
"the police will remain in Exarcheia till the last hooligan is routed",
the word hooligan referring to anarchists, leftists and other radical
groups which have made the particular city quarter a most vibrant center
of cultural, political and social creativity and critique in the last half
century.

At the same time that the government is parading in TV channels trying to
keep its propaganda machine oiled, thousands of protesters have taken to
the streets of Athens against the police-state. The dynamic march which
started from Exarcheia square made the circle of the historical centre of
the capital past the Parliament and ended at Propylaea in front of the
occupied University's Rector Headquarters. During the march police
presence was particularly discreet.

Lawyers of the Legal Support Association have strongly condemned the
government of installing a police-state in Exarcheia, bringing back not
just memories but concrete practices of collective punishment of the 1960s
dictatorship. The Association has publicly called for the resignation of
the Minister who, it claimed, was out-of-the-law. Mr Mavridis, lawyer and
anti-dictatorship veteran, has gone public saying that "if this situation
continues, the government will be facing not just the youth but an older
generation, ready for war and with a good knowledge of it".