Greece: Student severely beaten by undercover policemen, right after the 17N demonstration

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Monday November 20, 2006 23:18

by LA

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Student severely beaten by undercover policemen, right after the 17N demonstration

watch [http://www.babylonia.gr/video_download.php?id=19]

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STATEMENT FOR THE ATTITUDE AND THE ACTION OF THE POLICE FORCES
IN THESSALONIKI. FOLLOWING THE MARCH FOR THE POLYTECHNIC MEMORIAL
by Dimitris Chassapis
Professor in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Secretary of the Teaching-Research Staff Union of the Aristotle Univ.

From the position of the citizen and the Academic, Secretary of
the Teaching-Research Staff Union of AUTh, I want to denounce the attitude and
the actions of the police forces, yesterday, following the March for the
Polytechnic Memorial, in Thessaloniki.
Some slight riots that took place in the area of the Philosophy
Faculty, were faced with the immediate intervention of the Dean; but then those
incidents were inflated, magnified and used as an excuse in oder to :
- spread terror to the places around University, against students and
professors, who were leaving the memorial events
- drawn in teargas the entire area of Camara and Sindrivani square
- keep the city centre closed till midnight,
while the demonstration had already ended at about 8pm, when the memorial events
in the University started.
After a discussion for the University Asylum, held in the Main Hall of
AUTh, Academics, including members of the Comittee of the Teaching-Research
Staff Union and passer-by citizens, witnessed a severe walloping of a young
person, in Aggelaki str., in front of ABC Hotel. The young guy, handcuffed and
bleeding, was beaten up by plain-clothed and face-covered people, in front of
uniformed police officers.

We declared our identities and protested for the guy's
torturing (in public and surveiled by police officers) asking for legality
to be applied. Our protests were treated by the face-covered offenders with rude
swearing and by the uniformed police officers with the statements "I don't see
anything", "I don't have a name".
Academics and citizens, yesterday, we faced a complete
break down of any legality, right in the centre of the city, outside the
university asylum, by face-covered policemen and anonymous police officers.
The Committee of the Academic Staff Union will discuss their
reaction to this issue, during a non-scheduled assembly the day after tomorrow
and will report to the Public Prosecutor of Thessaloniki, whom we tried to find,
in vain, during the incident and by visiting the Court right afterwards.
Thessaloniki 18.11.06

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Transcript:
[1] Student: Help! Help!
[2] Student: Please, help!
[3] Student: Please, please
[4] Police officer: You, stay there. Don't, you, don't touch me.
The headmaster of Police Forces was there and doing nothing. The
bleeding guy was dragged all across the square and arrested by the undercovered
policemen who had beated him and led to the police department. He was
transferred to the hospital 7 hours later, at 5am! He has been in the hospital
for two days so far, with a fractured nose, sews in his mouth and bruises all
over his body.
His fellow comrade, who was walking nearby, said "we were
leaving the memorial events that had been taking place in the university, there
were no riots at that place and we had nothing suspicious on us".
The police, reacted with the following press release: "The 24th
year old man, seeing the policemen and obviously trying to escape, he first fell
on a parked motorbike and on a jardiniere which was at that place, resulting to
his injury. Policemen that were close, tried to immobilize him and arrest him,
but he resisted and sweared on them, pushing and hitting, using his body (arms -
legs)."

The Police later announced that there is a service interrogation
taking place by a high-level officer, but they insisted on the fact that
incidents took place as described in the press release. It is well known that
police officers tend to face complete immunity in such incidents.
The Public Prosecutor Mr Floridis, who was apparently absent
during the incident, was the one who had issued an announcement, a few days ago,
requesting the abolishment of the University Asylum, in order to prevent any
riots. Academics and students unions reacted, by organising a series of events,
including discussions, music concerts, in the university, were the demonstration
ended. The asylum (=the fact that the police cannot enter the university) is
luckily well appreciated by the academic community who tried to defend it this
year after managed to keep a quite peaceful demonstration.

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Greece: Student severely beaten by undercover policemen, right after the 17N demonstration