Sixth Day of Violence in Greece
Independent Television News
Students occupying an Athens university have clashed with police and vowed to keep on protesting.
Elsewhere in Athens, high school students attacked police stations with stones and firebombs, injuring one bystander, in a sixth day of rioting sparked by the shooting of a teenager, police said.
"An elderly bystander was taken to hospital after he was hit by a rock," said a police official who declined to be named.
More than ten police stations from the coastal suburbs to western working class districts were attacked within one hour, he added.
It is the sixth day of protests since the shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, whose death ignited anger at police brutality and rising economic hardships due to the global economic slowdown.
Greeks returned to work after a 24-hour general strike called by unions against the conservative government's economic policies.
But many people wonder where the worst riots in Greece since military rule ended in 1974 will leave their government.
School and university students and teachers have called for a rally in Athens on Friday, and further demonstrations are planned for next week.
"The government has shown it cannot handle this. If police start imposing the law everyone will say the military junta is back," said Yannis Kalaitzakis, 49, an electrician. "The government is stuck between a rock and a hard place."
Many people were angry that the 37-year-old policeman charged with murdering the teenager did not express remorse to investigators on Wednesday. He said he fired warning shots in self-defence which ricocheted to kill the youth.
Epaminondas Korkoneas and his partner, who is charged as an accomplice, were sent to jail pending a trial on Wednesday. Cases in Greece often take months to reach court.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who has announced financial support for hundreds of businesses damaged in the rioting, is due to travel to Brussels for an EU summit as the government tried to carry on business as usual.
Mr Karamanlis and opposition leader George Papandreou have appealed for an end to the violence, which has hit at least ten Greek cities and damaged hundreds of millions of pounds in property.
Greeks also protested in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, The Hague, Moscow, New York, Italy and Cyprus.
www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/sixth+day+of+violence+in+greece/2880317