Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Greek general strike: paralized country, large demos and major clashes

Today a general strike, the eighth in few months, has paralyzed Greece again. It was a response to the latest FMI-EU imposed reforms against social rights, against the rights of the working class. The trigger this time has been a law that allows employers to ignore unions-companies agreements and fix unilaterally the salaries of their workers. 

Airports and trains are totally paralyzed  all day but otherwise information is scarce because apparently journalists have also walked out in the same day.

"Thousands" of demonstrators took part in the many protests along the country. The ones in the two major cities, Athens (more than100,000 demonstrators according to La Haine) and Thessaloníki (20,000), turned violent.

In the South Macedonian capital, activists threw Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs) against government buildings and damaged bank offices. In the national capital, the Finance Ministry was attacked and there were clashes with the police (videos at BBC and Euronews). As mentioned before a former minister was attacked and injured by a group of some hundred people (left). 


Sources: Al Jazeera[en] and La Haine[es]

Update: All luxury cars have been burned around the five stars hotels near Parliament. The hotel entrances were also attacked. Some demonstrators attempted to capture the see of the officialist union GSEE, controlled by the government. 


Some more photos:




Even more at Indymedia Athens.

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