Ever wondered what ungovernability looks like?
It looks like this. Good job, Austerity Bastards, good job.
17 feb 2012,
#syntagma never stop barking
photo by Thanassis Stavrakis
Yesterday night, Marios Lolos the photojournalist that shoot this picture (some time ago) was once again the victim of police brutality. A riot cop hit Marios Lolos with a baton on the back of his head few seconds after this pic was taken. Lolos was there to cover the 2nd day of demostrations that held place in the honor of Dimitris Christoulas, the 77yo man that suicide in Syntagma. Anyone can see that this photojournalist was there, peacefully, doing his job. In a democratic country he is not a threat, though in Greece it was the second time that this man was targeted by the police, same style hit in the head from behind. This was not a random attack to a person in a demo, Marios Lolos is a very recognizable face, he is also the leader of photojournalist union and had numerous verbal threats by members of the police, probably because when a photojournalist is doing his job is a threat to the regime. An unarmed photographer is that dangerous that the riot policeman used his baton upside-down and the hit was with its metalic part, as witnesses and doctors confirm.
Today, Marios will be operated in the head because the life-threatening hit caused a fracture and a dent that pressures his brain. We trully hope he will recover soon and keep standing next to the people.
At the same time a 18 year old boy is in serious condition after a savage treatment from the police in Crete. He was not in a demostration or doing something illegal or violent. He and few of his friends was kept in a police station after a “casual” inspection. He was alone in room with hooded policemen that kept beating him for hours and then threw him out. The young boys was too afraid to talk about the beating but soon the condition of the 18yo worsen and they had to take him to the hospital. His condition was that serious that they had to transfer him urgently to a hospital in Athens. He is now fighting for his life with a raptured pancreas, a semi-functioning lung, broken ribs, two large hematomas in his liver, a damage in his suprarenal gland.
When the police spokesman was asked about this case he said they will investigate it with a EDE (EDE is an “Bound-by-Oath Administrative Enquiry” but EDE is more known as the quickest joke in greek language). At the same time he said ‘it was suspicious that the case was reported five days after the incident”. He insisisted that “the boy got in the room standing and left the room standing”. During his stay in the room his friends witnessed that they heard him repeatedly pleading for mercy. Just before they let him go (standing, as the spokesman emphasized) the policemen asked him if he is in pain. Because, if you are in pain we will continue, they added.
The Greek Police is very busy lately but they will have a EDE on Marios Lolos’ case as well, as some visiting police members said to his family in the hospital.
This is a photo of Marios Lolos under the care of a medical crew, in the background you can see a fellow journalist, Manolis Kypraios, a man that less than a year ago was the victim of an other incident of police brutality and now as a consequence he is deaf! Ofcourse Greek Police declared that a EDE investigation will take place about Kypraios’ report on police violence. Since then we never heard anything about the result of this EDE.
Kypraios’ case was recently engaged by the Amnesty International. Read more about it here
4 april 2012,
Today, in #syntagma square, just next to the Greek parliament, a 77 year old man shot himself in the head. His last words, according to passers-by, were “I don’t want to leave a debt on my children”. Since this morning, people have swarmed around the tree, next to which the man took his own life, leaving notes and silently honoring his memory.
His suicide note reads:
“The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945”
(Note: Tsolakoglou was the first collaborationist prime minister during Germany’s occupation of Greece during the Second World War and the 77-year-old man compared the currently assigned prime minister Papademos to the traitor Tsolakoglou.)
this post’s photo is by @iptamenos3
learn more about this story through this real-time storify post or through twitter via #syntagma hastag
BBC article about the 40% suicide surge in Greece
Customers queue to buy cheap sacks of potatoes sold directly by farmers at cost price in the northern Greek town of Thessaloniki on March 2. Farmers in northern Greece have joined forces with local residents to provide cheap produce to the people, who placed orders by email, and also to help producers who say they are being squeezed by middlemen. Similar ‘solidarity’ actions started to be organized in other Greek cities.
High school students throw items at riot police outside the Greek Parliament during an anti-austerity protest in Athens, Friday, on Feb. 17. Tensions between Athens and other European capitals hit new highs this week as eurozone ministers delayed to next Monday a decision on a bailout agreement and demanded more commitments from Greece.
An employee of the Workers Housing Organisation threatens to jump from the office where she worked because her wage has been cut and she and her husband were threatened with layoffs, in Athens February 15, 2012. Workers Housing Organisation is a state owned company that is on the list of state entities that may be shut down to cut costs under the terms of the new 130-billion-euro ($170 billion) bailout agreement with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Credits: REUTERS/Panayiotis Tzamaros
People walk past graffiti which reads “Rob to gain money” on a wall of the central bank of Greece in Athens on Feb. 13, 2012.
A riot policeman kicks an anti-austerity protester who fell during clashes in Athens’ Syntagma (Constitution) square February 10, 2012.
Credits: REUTERS/PHASMA/Michalis Karagiannis
Athens, Feb. 12. Shit is real.
(Photo seen everywhere on Twitter, I can’t estabilish who the author is. If you can help please let me know so I can give proper credit)
Ospedale greco sotto il controllo dei lavoratori.
(via uomoinpolvere)
29 dec 2011
Christmas in Athens for Loukanikos and 20.000 homeless people
photo by emmy
22 apr 2010,
quite a great portrait Kostas Gerontis
