22.23 Athens IMC reports police shoot warning shots in Exarcheia.
21.36 Riot police are storming Exarcheia square.
21.34 Parliament votes in latest round of austerity cuts
20.24 Mass detention of approximately 30 people at the Akropoli metro station.
18.32 Confirmed report that a 53-year old builder has just died from police’s chemical warfare.
17.26 From Athens Indymedia: there are clashes between protesters and DIAS/DELTA in the narow side-streets below Syntagma (Ermou, Athinas, around Monastiraki etc). A few thousand demonstrators have gathered in Syntagma and more still try to come but are blocked by police at the side streets.
17.13 More than 40 injured people at Evangelismos hospital. Police launched a surgical attack on the street, making way for PAME to leave Syntagma from Panepistimiou Ave, to move toward Omonoia square. Other groups of demonstrators are now moving back into Syntagma where the police presence has increased.
17.07 Hospital is stating that no one is seriously injured, and that there are none dead. PAME has left Syntagma square. Police have now taken over from them in protecting the parliament.
16.56 Unconfirmed: media is reporting possibly one person dead from the earlier clashes.
16.38 Police lined up around the square, looks like they are getting ready for another attack.
16.35 Report from Greek Indymedia: while the anti-authoritarian/anarchist groups were fighting with the pame security forces at the upper side of the syntagma square, riot cops tried to attack them from the lower side. Then people from base syndicates, ultra left (a trotskyist group called EEK), the union of workers who support drug addicts and other demonstrators blocked the riot cops and this way helped the anarchists who were fighting the stalinists.
16.21 Large groups have started occupying the lower side of syntagma square and numbers are growing, coming in from the side streets. Syntagma square is full again with PAME members at the upper side in front of the parliament and the other demonstrators (base syndicates, union groups, ultra-left, anti-authoritarians) at the lower side.
16.09 Thousands of members of PAME in front of the parliament. Police pulled back from the lower parts of Syntagma, smaller groups of anti-authoritarians, base syndicates and ultra left entering the square. Most union demonstrators still blocked in the side streets.
15.58 Demonstrator watching the riots two streets from Syntagma.
15.49 Most demonstrators now pushed out of the square and into the side streets. People are still trying to get back into the square but the riot police and the Stalinists are blocking access.
15.30 At least 20 demonstrators have been injured by the clashes. The Stalinists have handed demonstrators to the police. At least two Stalinists have been burnt by molotovs. Clashes continue at Mitropoleos Street.
15.38 Police have now taken all of the lower part of the Syntagma Square and the Stalinists have the upper part.
15.27 Full-on police attack to clear Syntagma. Large crowd pushed down Ermou street.
15.18 Incredible scenes – generalised violence across much of Syntagma. More molotovs and stones thrown at the Stalinists crowd.
15.15 Police now try to enter the square from Stadiou and to trap the anarchists.
14.59 The clashes are escalating. Molotov thrown into Stalinist crowd.
14.52 Clashes continue as protestors try and reach the parliament. The clashes are severe, flares shot straight into the crowd.
14.47 Generalised clashes between hundreds of anarchists and Stalinists in Syntagma. Stones, bottles and flares are thrown. Protestors trying to break through PAME lines to reach the parliament.
14.44 A huge anarchist block now attacking Stalinist lines. They are face to face by the Great Britain Hotel in Syntagma. Police firing teargas.
13.14 Once again the stalinist trade union, PAME, has lined up before the police (!) not allowing people to get anywhere close to them, or to parliament.
12.45 The two metro stops (Syntagma and Evangelismos) are once again closed.
Picture taken from the side of the anarchist block, facing the parliament, at 15.08. Clashes taking place at the front.
Early day updates from contra-info:
12.00 GMT+2 A police helicopter is flying above Exarchia. Small groups of plainclothes cops are spread all over the streets of downtown Athens. As was reported yesterday by various protesters, it is hard to differentiate these thugs from other demonstrators and is easy to get trapped, beaten and even detained.
11.40 GMT+2 The Stalinists of PAME are already in Syntagma. Comrades report that they line up holding sticks, in order to secure the reactionary character of their pathetic rally while they block other demonstrators to move on the sidewalk of the Unknown Soldier Monument in front of the parliament. At the moment there is no police presence (at least immediately visible). The Stalinists are about to play once more the role of the cops, in order to suppress any possible actions of insurgency.
11.20 GMT+2 In Athens the crowd is already thick in Propylaea and in Syntagma Square. Cops have fired tear gas in one case already. (In case of arrest, people should speak out loud their names to fellow protesters.) There’s still the stink of tear gas from the day before.
10.30 GMT+2 Pre-gatherings for the second day of the nationwide general strike have already begun. Yesterday the strike mobilizations saw hundreds of thousands on the streets of numerous Greek cities (some estimates were as large as half a million in Athens alone). Yesterday, all 154 members of the ruling party of PASOK approved the new multi-bill of austerity measures introduced by the Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos.
Today, MPs will take a final vote in favour or against this bill which aims at the further deterioration of the lives of millions. The armed pigs of the democratic dictatorship, the collaborationist unionists, the corporate media and all types of fascists have been trying to suppress by any means the overflow of rage and an upcoming social revolt. It remains to be seen if people will manage to overcome fear and corporate propaganda, raising barricades of resistance and taking down the apparatus of the State and the Capital.
