foreign
we just arrived at the athens
polytechnic where people
have been gathering for three days now
workers unions student unions
schools families have come here to lay
flowers down at the place where the
gates of the university fell after the
town rode over them killing many many
people
on november 17 1973 a tank crashed
through the entrance of the athens
polytechnic university
killing many of the students that were
clinging to the gates
the students had been protesting
greece's military junda
who had ruled the country since 1967.
that night marked the downfall of their
dictatorship it also marked the
beginning of the greek anarchist
movement
is
to commemorate the uprising every year
between the 15th and 17th of november
students workers and anarchists from all
over greece
take over the athens polytechnic
the celebration culminates in a mass
protest that ends in exaggera
an artist neighborhood that is
traditionally considered the spiritual
home
of the anarchist movement over the last
few years these demonstrations have
taken on a deeper meaning
mostly due to the country's financial
and social problems
so the gates of the university started
closing and people started
exiting the campus area the festivities
of the past three days are concluding
and some of the people here will now
start preparing for today's demo
in the past month students all over the
country started taking over their high
schools and universities
in order to protest a new round of
educational measures that's basically
going to make
free education in this country harder to
achieve so it sounds like there's a lot
of
anger but then again i can't really
remember the last time
there wasn't any anger in this country
foreign
we're right in the middle of cinderella
square right now police is behind me and
it's really funny because they've
really like covered the whole square the
chance coming from the
black block and the protests in general
have like just started being
very aggressive towards police as always
people are either saying
cops and nazis are the same thing
or solidarity is the weapon of the
people
things just started getting a bit more
tense people from the black block
and protesters just started like
throwing water bottles and other pieces
of garbage the police
let's palm it come here
suddenly the police descended on the
crowd deploying tear gas and flashbangs
as well as indiscriminately hitting
protesters
one of our crew was also attacked
someone from the black block threw a
water bottle at the police and suddenly
there was tear gas all over the place
the waste is what happened to the year
to alexis
director my riot policeman was um
pulling her hair another one was kicking
her
you can see basically the remains of the
protest here there's like
shoes all over the place
the crowd began to make its way to
exaggera an area the police normally
stay out of
in previous years the demonstration has
ended here
with minor classes between protesters
and police
for the past 10 minutes the protesters
were holding back and police was just
waiting here and now it seems like
people are coming
in full force i don't know maybe they're
looking to retaliate but suddenly the
the voices are even louder and people
are all wearing their gas masks and
their hoodies
episode
foreign
we realized that the police had
completely surrounded the square
directly confronting the protesters
so the moment we turned into exaggerated
the moment we reached the square
we got in we found a small like turf
battle
going on between anarchists and riot
police right now as you can see behind
me there's police right behind me
in front of me it's taking over the
square completely
we're in the middle of what's supposed
to be an anarchist turf
and the fact that they've moved in so
into the
neighborhood i don't think would be
great for morale
foreign
so behind me is a place that's run by
anarchy's four anarchists for the
neighborhood it's called vox
but as soon as the tear gas started
loads of
protesters run inside vox to get to find
shelter
but obviously the fumes also got in the
in the building and right now there's
riot police
as you can see all over and people are
trapped inside and
from what i heard from some neighbors
people were yelling
help help someone help us because
obviously being suffocated by the films
the battle for exaggerate went on
through the night
that same evening the minister of public
order vasilis kikiris
visited the athens police headquarters
to congratulate the police on a job well
done
the level of police brutality seems to
mark a shift in the way the greek
government is handling civil
disobedience
with the state having made their stance
clear it will be interesting to see how
the anarchist movement retaliates
you