50,000 People With 2,000 Strong Anarchist Black Bloc Marches In Athens

'Dictatorship wearing a democratic mask is still a dictatorship.'

Perseus999: Athens, Greece.17th of November is the day where the student revolt against the dictatorship in Athens, Greece in 1973 is being commemorated. The 3days festivities lead to a march at the streets of every city in Greece, but mainly in central Athens where a usually massive march is organized towards the American embassy, that is being blamed of co-operating and imposing the junta regime at the time.
Like every other year the police measures are suppressive to an extreme length while this year almost 7.000 cops or more were guarding a march of 50.000 people focused particularly around the black block of approximately 2.000 anarchists and antiauthoritarians.


Several days (14 November 2014) in an unprecedented move, the greek state showed its fear of just a memory of a revolt 41 years ago and without any prior notice closed down all main universities in the center of Athens and encircled them with scores of riot policemen and bikers.


In response students organized a marched and hundreds tried to approach the Polytechnic School of Athens in Exarchia and take it over, only to be brutally attacked by the riot police.

On November 17, 2014 the center of Athens reminded of a city under siege by the police, whether in uniform or undercover performing continuous searches on passers by, in some occasions detaining people known for their political ideology while they were exiting their homes and blocking all the subway exits in the main metro lines.

Athens was looking like being under a military dictatorship regime once again, a fact that didnt deter anarchists from joining the protest while a black bloc of approximately 2.000 or more was formed. Throughout the whole protest the hundreds of riot police cops encircled the block tightly, which in turn fueled the passion of anarchists shouting solidarity and anti-police slogans.

Due to the suppressive and provocative police attitude the protest turned into a riot while the police feared of the black bloc approaching the final destination of the march so few blocks away from the american embassy and without any prior provocation riot police heavily attacked the bloc in their attempt to completely dismantle it, reminding people that a dictatorship wearing a democratic mask is still a dictatorship.