Greece: investigation after a strong police intervention to enforce confinement
Images of a young man beaten with batons by police officers have gone viral, causing an uproar in the country.
© video capture / Twitter
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3 min
In Greece, the Athens prosecutor's office on Monday ordered a preliminary investigation the day after the broadcast of a video that has gone viral on social networks.
The images disseminated online show a muscular police intervention in a suburb of the Greek capital, at the time of a control supposed to enforce the containment in place since November.
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With our correspondent in Athens,
Joël Bronner
The video circulating online is one minute long.
A minute during which a young Greek surrounded by a handful of police officers receives a shower of baton blows from one of them.
The fact that the young man finds himself on the ground and shouts “
Πονάω
” “
I am in pain
” does not stop this outburst of violence, which the images circulating do not allow us to understand or justify.
Ditto for the setting of this clubbing, a small apparently quiet square, in a residential suburb of Athens.
It is because this video suggests a largely gratuitous police violence, also arousing the anger of many Internet users as well as the indignation of passers-by filmed on the video, that a preliminary investigation has just been opened.
In a statement, police said some officers were previously attacked by 30 people, a claim that has yet to be substantiated.
Following the dissemination of these images, several hundred people gathered during a spontaneous demonstration, in the same suburb, to denounce police violence.
A rally finally dispersed by riot police with tear gas.
The incident immediately took on a political dimension, with the left-wing opposition taking the opportunity to accuse the conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of a security drift since coming to power in 2019.
Μήνυση κατά παντός υπευθύνου από τον Γ.
Γ.
του ΔΣΑ για το όργιο αστυνομικής αυθαιρεσίας στη Νέα Σμύρνη - The Press Project - Ειδήσεις, Αναλύσεις, Ραδιηνο, αotλBps://www.taxiηvot.com/pic.tv.tv.tv.tv.tv.tv.tv.tv.tv.tv.tw.tw.tw.t.x.t.w.t.w.t.w.t.x.n.t.pic.t.x.tw.tw.tw.t.x.t.w.t.t.x.tw.t.pic
- ThePressProject (@ThePressProject) March 8, 2021
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Greece
Kyriakos Mitsotakis