Greek Police Attacks small village Keratea
L. - 09.02.2011 12:48
Keratea struggle in “civil war twist” as riot police indiscriminately storm houses in the town and 1,000 people besiege the local police station for hours in response.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhBec1_Z3bE&feature=player_embedded
On Tuesday 8th of February around 4PM, the Greek Riot Police invaded a small working class village called Keratea, located at the edge of Athens. The police after breaking in to houses and arresting two people, blocked the entrances of the village and start attacking people on the streets. At that point the main population of the village was at their works, thus making it hard to drive back to their houses inside the village. They had to go over small muddy roads through the crop fields, only to arrive at their village to find their mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, young brothers and sisters to be physically and verbally abused by the riot police.
[In the video: the woman at the start, being in shock, cries out that she was beaten up by the police, while later on the video you can see an older man trying to push the police away to reach his home only to be thrown on the ground and saved by his son.]
The riot police, in a military style, like thugs and criminals [same as the ones we all witness during the Egypt uprising, only in this case they still have their gear on] stayed on the village throughout the day and night, bulling and attacking people on the streets, using excessive amount of tear gasses, and throwing stones towards all the people of this village, no matter age or sex. In the meantime, all access to the village was blocked by police cars, no media arrived on the scene, and no Greek media reported the event.
As you can see from the video, the people of Keratea are strong fighters! The fight back. Ordinary people, working class youth, mastered the art of urban guerrilla warfare. They use Molotov cocktails against riot police, they throw stones, they cover tear gas with buckets of water or spray them with fire extinguishers, they hit and run, burn police cars and siege the police station.
How can this be? And why all this? The story goes back only 2 months. Two months ago, this people made a protest against the decision of the government to build next to their village a landfill waste facility. In Greece such facility is not as you will expect here in the Netherlands. They will just open a hole, through in the garbage, and then cover the hole, leaving all the waste to be absorbed by the ground, thus polluting the crops and the water of the area. In addition, the area is protected by law, being a historical landmark.
The catch is that the private company to undertake this task, is owned by media tycoons, which in totally corporations with the corrupted junda government they seek to, once more, steal the money intended for an eco-friendly solution to the waste problem, and in contrast just dump the wastes on the mountain. Same tactics of the mafia in south Italy.
It goes without saying, that since this is something that the media tycoons profit from, these events never reached the Greek media.
The peaceful protest of the people of Keratea two months ago was answered by the Greek Junta government with violence and attacks. Since then, these people learned how to defend their rights, their life, and now they fight back. The digging for the waste facility has yet to start. The people will sabotage the machines during night, they will block the roads and build barricades.
In Greece we are leaving a police junta which has not be noticed by anyone. The media are working with the government to silence every uprising of the people in order to keep it under control. Get informed, pass the news, information is important. Solidarity is necessary.
More articles:
http://antixyta.blogspot.com/2011/01/keratea-under-siege.html
http://eagainst.com/articles/greece-the-battle-of-keratea/
http://rioter.info/2010/12/20/keratea/
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2010/12/14/444-third-day-of-rioting-in-keratea-attica-against-waste-burial-site-construction-sees-riot-police-van-and-policeman-set-alight-court-orders-temporary-halt-to-the-works-greece-counts-hours-to-it/
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2011/02/08/493-keratea-struggle-in-civil-war-twist-as-riot-police-storm-houses-in-the-town-and-1000-people-besiege-the-local-police-station-for-hours/
 Website: http://antixyta.blogspot.com/
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