ATHENS – Thousands of police were deploying in Athens and other major Greek cities today, ahead of annual demonstrations marking the 1973 student revolt against a United States-backed junta.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to participate in the demonstrations after authorities allowed them to go ahead, with over half the country fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
Last year, the government tried to ban the anti-junta protests as the anniversary fell in the middle of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, before vaccines became available.
But hundreds defied the ban, and police used tear gas, stun grenades, and water cannons to disperse the demonstration in Athens.
Police today were deploying riot officers, drones, helicopters, and water cannons in the capital, as violence regularly breaks out during the annual protest.
There has been additional tension in past months as a result of a new law that bans demonstrators from streets partially open to traffic.
Many protesters have ignored the restriction, and riot police have regularly used tear gas and water cannons to push them back.
The annual protests mark the day in 1973 when at least 24 people were killed at Athens Polytechnic, when the junta sent troops and police against a pro-democracy student uprising.
The brutal crackdown shocked Europe, and is generally considered to have broken the dictatorship’s grip on power, leading to the restoration of democracy months later.
The bloodstained Greek flag that flew that night over the Polytechnic’s iron gate, which was crushed by a tank, is carried at the head of the demonstration in the capital each year.
Most years, tens of thousands of mainly left-wing demonstrators march through Athens to the American embassy, to protest Washington’s support for the Greek military dictatorship during the Cold War. – AFP, November 17, 2021
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