A farmer was seriously injured in the head and was taken to a nearby hospital when tension broke between protesting farmers from Peloponnese and riot police outside the Greek Parliament in downtown Athens.
The angry farmers had come to Athens to protest the ‘unified property tax’ that will impose heavy fees also to plots of cultivated land. together with them was a truck loaded with oranges that the farmers were planning to distribute to passersby free of charge. But police halted the truck.
The farmers marched towards the Parliament and wanted to distribute the oranges to policemen. This offer was not accepted.
The result? The angry protesters started to throw the oranges at the riot police, the police fired tear gas, a brawl broke out between protesters and the men of law and order.
One farmer was injured in the head after being hit with a police baton, according to Greek media.
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
Later in the afternoon, a farmers’ delegation managed to get into the Parliament and deliver a written protest to the lawmakers from several parties.
Farmers said that their land plots are workplaces and not luxurious possessions. Taxing cultivated land will burden the farmers with 200 million euro per year.
Also several farmers organizations from Crete had traveled to Athens to protest the tax.
more pictures: newsit, no-newsnews, protothema
