Police and neonazis heavily attack and injure antifascists; Neonazi demo cancelled

On Saturday, 2nd of February, the Greek State and its various guard-dogs (police, neonazis & other para-statists), united in striking the anti-fascist demonstration organized by leftist organizations, anarchists and anti-authoritarians. Two anti-fascists were heavily injured and transferred to hospital -one with a deep wound caused by a 20cm long knife stab at the belly area, and the second one with a serious injury on the head and knife stabs at his legs.

The - supposedly outlawed - neonazi group "Golden Dawn" had called for a demonstration on the evening of 2nd of February, to commemorate some incident between the greek and turkish military in 1998. Leftist groups had called for a counter-demonstration at the same square five hours earlier, at 2pm. The first anti-fascists arriving at the square discovered it had already been occupied from fascists, waiting there from the early hours. The anti-fascist demo, comprising of leftists, anarchists and anti-authoritarians, was confronted by the police and neo-nazis joined forces (photos): The fascists ran through the riot police line, attacked and stabbed two anti-fascists before running behind the police again (!) The heavy anti-fascist presence (significantly strengthened by the joining of a smaller demonstration against a biotechnology conference in Athens) forced the ban of the fascist demonstration.

The police were quick to heavily attack the anti-fascist gathering in an attempt to disperse and arrest people; anti-fascists retreated to, and occupied the deanship's university building and a march was called for 7 o' clock in the evening. Most the leftist organizations, despite having previously decided to occupy the square where the fascists wanted to protest, chose not to participate in the evening march.

The peaceful antifascist march started at 20:00 and was brutally attacked from the police early on and without any provocation; it took a huge amount of tear gas and beating for the police to disperse a march that the protesters made every effort to safeguard.

Many anti-fascists were brutally beaten by the police and about one hundred were arrested and taken to the police headquarters, where a spontaneous solidarity gathering formed and lawyers started arriving. By the end of the night all arrestees werel set free with no charges, except for one woman charged with three misdemeanours and also released later on. Of these people, 20 were taken to hospital for first aid treatment.

From Athens Indymedia