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Greek Police Union Apologizes for the Violence
Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Politics, Society, Uncategorized
President of the Policemen Union (POASY) G. Fotopoulos publicly apologized for the extensive use of violence by police on Wednesday. Fotopoulos apologized in radio programmes in the morning, he repeated his regrets in the on television in the afternoon. “I apologize from the public. That’s a shame!” he said and accused the political leadership for using the police and have it intervene in problems that need other kind of solutions.
At the same time the unions of policemen (POASY) and police officers (POAXIA) issued a statement, asking an investigation on the use of violence and massive use of tear gas.
“An independent commission needs to investigate what happened yesterday, what was the direction and what was the intention and plan”.
“Instead of ensuring the constitutional right of assembly and cordon a safe area on side of the police in cooperation with the demonstrators, everything shows ‘failure’ in fulfilling the mission, that was dominated by forces of chaos and mess. There are questions as to why those people were not arrested”.
Speaking of ‘atrocities’ also of the past, the two police unions ask the fundamental reorganisation of the greek police.
Another police unionist said on a private TV network, that the incidents in Wednesday, showed the “weakness” of other institutions and confirmed that there is no police violence without orders. Including the political will, implying the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection. “There was no citizens’ protection”. He also complained about the working conditions of policemen.
EL.AS. Police spokesman Kokalakis however justified the actions and told another TV network that the excessive use of tear gas was in order to cope with the molotov firebombs, the stones and the smoke attacks. Kokkalakis said the operations had tow targets : No human losses and to ensure the functioning of the Parliament.
Police “Assisting” Fainting Protesters….
Thepictures on the stairs are from Stratos/Athens – He has more in the series “Police Violence/Simple Story …
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Having watched many video clips and seen the spokesman on tv , i remain unconvinced that the greek police have any idea what they are doing.. i imagine many of those we have seen are not even trained in riot scenarios, they could learn a great deal from countries such as the uk, whose methods, tho’ far from perfect, are at least effective.
It’s the same method used by murderous criminal dictatorships over and over again. They can’t even think of anything new. Infiltrate group of paid violent fascists into peaceful protest, make them throw bombs at the security personnel, and you can later claim, that the protests turned violent, thus the police responded with force. Who they think they try to fool?