Amid tension in Greek universities and strong anti-austerity public sentiment the march to commemorate the dead and the Students’ Uprising of 1973 against the military dictatorship started at 3 pm. Seven thousand policemen in full equipment are said to be on alert, as thousands of students, workers, unemployed, young and old walk from Polytechnic School in Patision avenue towards the US embassy in Ampelokipoi.
The three days of commemoration reach their peak on November 17th, when a tank pushed down the door of the Polytechnic School where thousands of students and workers had protesting against the military dictatorship of colonels (junta).
At least 24 people were killed during the days of the Polytechnic Students’ Uprising of 1973, when soldiers and snipers fired against unarmed protesters or just innocent passersby.
Historic document – picture by Aristotelis Sarrikostas, the only photographer who documented the tank invasion of Polytechnic School on November 17th 1973.
As every year since the fall of junta in 1974, thousands flocked to the Polytechnic School to lay a flower or a wreath in memory of the dead, with politicians stating the usual blah..blah…
In Thessaloniki, however, the students hindered the rector of Aristotelio University to enter the yard and lay a wreath. The rector left his wreath at the entrance and students threw it in the garbage!
Riot Police stand by at Akadimias Avenues.
Some media estimate the number of demonstrators at 10,000 people.
Police has already proceeded to “20 preventive detentions”.
Irony of the day! 7,000 police men ‘secure’ the demonstration commemorating the Students’ Uprising against the military junta and the police state of 1973!
Unbelievable! More policemen than demonstrators! At Syntagma Square, outside the Greek Parliament
Students carry the blood-soaked Greek flag held by students in 1973 during the uprising. Who are they who have made the flag their own? Some claim these are students of PASOK university youth organization. Many PASOK officials rose as politicians after the Students’ Uprising and many blame them nowadays for having looted the country in the three decades they ruled Greece.
March continues without any incidents… like clashes between demonstrators and police, hoodies hurling petrol bombs or even provocateurs trying to disperse the crowd.
The victims during the Uprising: the oldest was 76 years old, the youngest 5 1/2. Both had nothing to do with the protest. Read the victims during the Uprising here.
Rare footage and pictures from Student’s Uprising in 1973
See also The Dead and the Songs and the Tortured by the colonels
I could write a book about the approach of the right-, the left- and the inbetween-wings to Polytechnic Uprising . One of the most striking approach has been uploaded by To Potami, the party of ex journalist Stavros Theodorakis. A party that has …well… nothing concrete to offer to citizens of an austerity-hit country.
@ToPotami “The students’ uprising in ’73 was a heroic act, against the party mechanisms of the time.”
Maybe Theodorakis’ intellect moves in higher atmospheric levels than mine does, but it is worth mentioning that political parties were banned by the colonels during the military junta 1967-1974!
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Protesters tweet that the police violence occurred without reason and that police attacked the blocks of leftist ANTARSYA and the block of some 300 anarchists.
Another video from Avgi.gr live streaming!
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Protesters moved garbage bins in the middle of Alexandras Avenue and set them on fire.
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