Violence erupts on Greek riot anniversary

By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Dec. 6, 2009

ATHENS, Greece – Masked youths hurled firebombs and chunks of marble at
police during a march in Athens Sunday to mark the first anniversary of
the police shooting of a teenager whose death sparked massive riots.

Police fired volleys of tear gas to disperse the youths in running street
battles in the center of the capital as several thousand demonstrators
commemorated the death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos. The
teenager's death sent youths rampaging through cities for two weeks last
December.

On Sunday, the rioters smashed bank windows, overturned trash bins and set
them alight as they hurled rocks and fire crackers at riot police.
Authorities said 134 people were detained for public-order offenses in
Athens and another 80 in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where a
similar demonstration also degenerated into violence.

At least five protesters were injured in the clashes, including a woman
who was hit by a police motorcycle. Police said 16 officers were hurt.

Police on motorcycles chased rioters amid scenes of chaos at Athens' main
Syntagma Square, with youths punching and kicking officers pushed off
their bikes. One policeman who lost control of his motorbike struck a
pedestrian woman, who was injured and later transported to the hospital in
an ambulance.

At Athens University, masked protesters broke into the building and pulled
down a Greek flag, replacing it with a black-and-red anarchist banner.

The dean of Athens University was injured when the youths broke into the
building, and was hospitalized in an intensive care unit, authorities
said.

As night fell, about 200 masked demonstrators were holed up in the
neoclassical university building, smashing marble chunks off the
university steps and ripping up paving stones from the courtyard to use as
missiles against the police.

A soccer match at Athens Olympic stadium between local clubs Panathinaikos
and Atromitos was suspended for 30 minutes because of tear gas used by
police against rioters outside the ground.

In Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city, youths threw gasoline bombs
at police, set fire to several cars and smashed 10 storefronts, including
a Starbucks cafe.

More than 6,000 police had been deployed across Athens in an effort to
prevent violence.

The new Socialist government, which came to power in October and has been
confronted with a surge in armed attacks by far-left and anarchist groups
after last year's shooting, and had vowed a zero-tolerance approach to
violence at Sunday's commemorations.

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Associated Press Writers Demetris Nellas, Derek Gatopoulos and Karolina
Tagaris in Athens, and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to
this report.