Greece’s police has been set on alert following attacks on police targets by anti-authoritarians. At an extraordinary meeting at Police Headquarters on Tuesday morning, Minister for Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochoidis has reportedly ordered all police services and especially police stations to be fully prepared to deal with attacks and especially to protect police officers. A plan has been drawn up for surveillance and the deterrence of any attacks.
At the meeting at the Police HQ, the minister and high-ranking officers discussed the measures to be taken to protect police officers and facilities such as police stations.
The meeting followed the Sunday attack with petrol bomb at the police station in Kaisariani suburb of Athens, where two police motorcycles were damaged and the attack on a patrol car in Zografou a day later. The perpetrators reportedly tried to set the police car on fire while the police officers were still inside. the officers managed to escape in safety on time.
In a statement uploaded on an anarchists’ website, anarchists claimed responsibility for the attack against the police car in Zografou linking it with the 17. November convict on hunger and thirst strike Dimitris Koufontinas.
According to police sources, two more attacks against policemen were averted in the suburbs of Agia Paraskevi and Nea Ionia.
However, it not only the attacks that create a cause of concern for the police. Monday night, some 100 people, “anarchists” as media report, set up “blockades” on streets in Zougrafou and Vyronas suburbs of Athens checking the papers of motorists passing by. They were reportedly checking if there were policemen in civilian clothes.
A riot police squad and units of motorcycles arrived at the spot but the “controllers” had reportedly withdrawn inside a students’ dormitory.
