Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile Version | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Report on Marmaras anti-EU anarchist action

Shortbread | 20.06.2003 19:19 | World


Report on yesterday demo in solidarity with immigrants and today's mayhem in Marmaras


Ok. It starts to be a bit more hectic around here. I am talking from my own perspective of course. I can't talk much about other groups than anarchists because I am not around them.
But anyway, here's what I saw.
So yesterday, anarchists gathered at the university before taking the streets in solidarity with immigrants and against borders and nations. Funny enough, anarchists behaved very well. We marched through immigrant and working class areas but they couldn't help a good spraypainting on banks and other institutions. We came face to face with the commies. They turned left, we went staight. All nice and all.
We came back to the university and went to bed early to be ready for the trip to Marmaras, a small village nearby the place where the EU Summit was taking place.
When we finally arrived, we placed ourselves in the front as aggreed with other organisations. It took a good while before started and man it's nay fun to wait in the midday sun!Until the people in white passed in front of us...but that went ok.
We marched through the country for a while, not too many cops about. At the end of the road, we knew there will be a brigde leading to the Summit place. really near to it. When we reach that point, we saw a good number of police lines on the bridge and just before it. Others were on our right side a bit down hill and many were hidding on our left side, up hill, the bridge being further on our right.In front of us, up hill as well, were many cops. Few of us threw some stones, some of us tried to stop them...and then it rained CS gas all over. We were surrounded by the police. Some of us managed to run to the road on the left side and the other had to retreat a bit and start the fight. I would like to mentioned that the police also threw stones many in revenge for so many years of stone throwing from our side.
I was at the left front of the march so the only thing I could do was to run to the road on the left. I was not going to stay longer in CS gas with no gas mask nor was I going to retreat for the police would have catch me.
A good number of us did the same. What happened to the others I only heard about it when we came back to the university.
Then started chaos. We ran for a bit and most of us never had a taste of CS gas. It's pretty nasty. It hurts you eyes, your lungs, your throat, your nose and also burns your skin like well like a very bad sunburn. Luckly, I don't panic in those situations. Having no gas mask, I just hold my breath as much as I could, running through exploding cans of gas (yeah they explode as well or the gas can be spray from gas guns) which can be painful if it does so on any part of your body. I'm a lucky one.
The locals were helping us giving water and stuff. Greeks don't like the police nor the State, something you would understand after so many years of dictatorship and a crap social democracy.
We tried to reform into a "block" but there was not much to do. hand to hand confrontation was impossible. What happened to chilvalry I'm asking you?! No, those cops were not gentlemen. Fair enough. And since we could enter into any other form of confrontation. Bits by bits we had to move toward the stalinists who ran away.
As far as I know, the others were far more numerous and after retreating a bit, they started making barricades. The cops were tough on them: CS gas from guns, throwing stones to anarchists (I still can't believe it!! I know there are no copyright on it but still!)Many were injured. Some passed out (that CS gas is a tough shit). I don't know how many were arrested but not many. There was a fight. We lost. But tomorrow is another day! Thessaloniki will be in pure chaos.

Few words on CS gas: nasty nasty bad stuff but not unbearable if you can go away for at least 15 minutes. It sticks on your skin, on your clothes, on everything and pure water makes it worse. I supposed it is activated by water/fluids.
There are 2 countries using it: Greece, as we have experienced today and Israel, unsurprisingly. Now, CS gas has been used recently in Northern Ireland as well when the PSNI we trying to kick out some loyalists from some local. It doesn't matter against who they used it because it means they can use it against whoever they want.

The university area is ok for now. We still have the buildings and the IMC. So far so good.

The others from ireland are resting. You might hear from them later on.

No matter how it goes tomorrow, there will be no remorse on our side.


Shortbread

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. Rough day... — Ben
  2. direct action at the summit — teargassed
  3. direct action at the summit — teargassed
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
13-18th February, London: No Borders Convergence: final details & programme
24th-26th February, near Glasgow: Earth First! Winter Moot
10th-11th March, Somerset: Surround and blockade Hinkley Point nuclear power station
From May 1st, Brighton Smash EDO: Summer of Resistance
9th June for 30 days, Faslane: 30 Days of Action at Faslane Naval Base

Ongoing UK
Every Wednesday, Brighton: noise demos at EDO MBM
Ongoing, Lincs: RAF Waddington Peace Camp. Protesting against Drone Warfare. More info.
Ongoing, London: Occupy London Stock Exchange
Ongoing, London Occupy Finsbury Square
Ongoing, Sheffield Occupy Sheffield
Ongoing, Cardiff Occupy Cardiff
Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Climate Change: Climate Indymedia
United Kollectives
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern England
Nottingham
Scotland
Projects
Indymedia Projects
iMobile Page
Photo Page
Indymedia Cinema
Video Page
Radio Page
Offline Newsheet
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Unencrypted Page
We suggest you use an encrypted connection for browsing this site.
Please install the CAcert root certificate to verify the authenticity of the site, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv

Africa
ambazonia
canarias
estrecho / madiaq
kenya
south africa

Canada
london, ontario
maritimes
ottawa
quebec
victoria

East Asia
japan
qc
saint-petersburg

Europe
abruzzo
alacant
antwerpen
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
bristol
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
euskal herria
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
london
madrid
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
nice
northern england
norway
oost-vlaanderen
paris/île-de-france
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
ukraine
united kingdom

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
melbourne
qc
sydney

South Asia
india

United States
arizona
atlanta
austin
baltimore
big muddy
binghamton
boston
buffalo
charlottesville
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
la
madison
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new mexico
new orleans
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
seattle
united states
urbana-champaign
western mass

West Asia
beirut
palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech