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ATHENS — Youths angry over the killing of a teenager by the police took to the streets in Athens and other Greek cities for a second day on Sunday, burning shops, cars and businesses in the worst rioting in recent years.
The violence continued despite swift action by the government, which charged a police officer with premeditated manslaughter in the shooting death of the 15-year-old on Saturday night. The country’s prime minister — whose government is already unpopular because of a series of corruption scandals — also wrote a letter of apology to the boy’s parents. The riots began hours after the boy was shot during a confrontation between the police and youths in the Exarchia neighborhood of central Athens, a district of bars, bookshops and restaurants where young leftists live and socialize. The youths regularly clash with the police, whom they view as symbols of the establishment. In most cases, the confrontations are relatively contained and end at the gates of universities with the young people holding off the police with gasoline bombs, rocks and slingshots. But the speed with which the riots spread over the weekend — and the ferocity of the protests — seemed to take the government by surprise. The police nationwide were not put on alert until Sunday night — only after fires had destroyed dozens of businesses, including a high-end department store in central Athens. Throughout the clashes, rioters used texting and Web sites to organize and communicate their responses against the police and other security forces. Nationwide, at least one bystander was hurt, as were six protesters and 16 police officers, according to the semi-official Athens News Agency. The details of the clash that led to the death of the 15-year-old, whose name was not released by the police, remained unclear. According to the police, two police officers had been patrolling Exarchia when their car was stopped by some 30 young men, many of them hurling stones, around 9 p.m. on Saturday. The officers left their car to confront the mob, “firing three shots that resulted in the death of the minor,” according to a police statement. Police officials interviewed on television said the shot that killed the boy could have been a warning shot gone awry. But Greek television featured witnesses who said one of the policemen had aimed at the teenager, who died while being transferred to a local hospital. Those accounts were also posted on [URL="http://www.indymedia.org/"][COLOR=#004276]www.indymedia.org[/COLOR][/URL], a Web site popular with leftist youth. One officer, Epaminondas Korkoneas, was charged with premeditated manslaughter. The other, Vassilis Saraliotis, was charged as an accomplice. As news of the death spread, hundreds of protesters began rampaging in the streets, first in Athens and then in other cities, including the country’s second-largest city, Salonika. Many lobbed fire bombs and stones at the riot police, who countered with tear gas. At least six people were arrested in Athens on Sunday, accused of looting from the destroyed department store and burned-out boutiques in the city’s commercial district, near Exarchia. Stylianos Volirakos, an Athens police spokesman, said dozens of officers had been injured while trying to seal off streets around Athens Polytechnic University, in the Exarchia neighborhood, where rioters retreated. The protesters, hiding behind blazing trash bins and the university’s gates, continued to pelt the police with stones and fire bombs. It remained unclear on Sunday night whether the authorities would try to get permission to storm the state university. Greek police and the military have been banned from college campuses since military tanks in 1973 rammed the gates of the school to quash a student uprising against the military junta at the time. At least 22 civilians died in that attack, which is marked every year by youth-led marches that occasionally turn violent. On Sunday in Athens, the authorities fired several rounds of tear gas, sending acrid gray smoke wafting over parts of the city. At least one apartment building was evacuated after masked youth torched a French car dealership on its ground level. (The leftist youths often attack Western targets.) The private television station Alpha reported that flames were lapping at some of the apartments’ balconies. In a news conference on Sunday, the interior minister, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, said, “It is inconceivable for there not to be punishment when a person, let alone a minor, loses their life.” He added: “The loss of life is something that is inconceivable in a democracy.” Mr. Pavlopoulos offered to resign early on Sunday, but the prime minister declined to take him up on the offer.
Sharon Otterman contributed reporting from New York.
I feel so sad knowing that Democracy was born here and look at where we heading...slowly killing it ...:(
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