Athens, December 07: Riot police in Greece fired tear gas canisters at youths Monday during a second day of protests commemorating a teenager shot dead by police last year, an incident that sparked the country’s worst unrest in decades.
Some of the 3,000 demonstrators, most of them high school students, threw stones at police during the protest in central Athens. There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests.
Sunday was the anniversary of the killing of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos. The teenager’s death in Athens on Dec. 6, 2008 led to two weeks of extensive riots, with gangs of youths smashing, looting and burning stores in cities across the country, protesting heavy-handed police tactics.
One police officer has been charged with murder in connection with the boy’s death, and another with attempted murder. The two will stand trial beginning Jan. 20.
On Sunday, violence broke out during another march on the anniversary of Grigoropoulos’ death. Masked youths hurled firebombs and jagged chunks of marble at riot police as several thousand people demonstrated in the Greek capital.
Police said at least 16 police and five demonstrators were injured during Sunday’s clashes, which continued late into the night.
The rioters smashed bank windows and set fire to overturned trash bins, while police responded with volleys of tear gas. Authorities said 177 people were detained in Athens and another 103 in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where a similar demonstration turned violent. Police also clashed with protesters in the southern city of Patras and the northwestern city of Ioannina.
—-Agencies