Pensioner's suicide over 'occupation govt' sparks riots in Greece (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

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Published time: April 05, 2012 08:23
Edited time: April 05, 2012 18:34

A protester throws a stone at policemen during riots at central Syntagma square in Athens April 4, 2012 (Reuters / Yorgos Karahalis)

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Conflict, Europe, Greece, Police, Protest, Scandal

Violent clashes took place in Athens as Greek police used tear gas and flash grenades to disperse an angry crowd of protesters. The demonstration was provoked by the suicide of a retired pharmacist sent over the edge by national austerity measures.

Some 1,500 people took part in the late evening protest on Wednesday in Athens’s central Syntagma Square in front of the parliament.

Angry people were throwing stones and firebombs at riot police officers.

Security forces used tear gas and flash grenades against the demonstrators to curb the violent attacks.

On Wednesday a 77-year-old man committed suicide in the same square. According to a note published by local media, the man said it was the only dignified path he could take.

He also compared the current Greek government to the one the country had under the Nazi Germany occupation and warned that the cabinet would eventually face the same fate as Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

Angry protesters put up slogans “It was a murder, not a suicide” and “Austerity kills” as they gathered at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to raise their voices against the government’s policies.

Greece has been relying on foreign bailout loans to cover its national debt for almost two years now. It had to adopt harsh austerity measures, including slashing down pensions and raising taxes to secure more credit.

The rampaging unemployment and shrinking of social benefits are causing mass protest in the country on a regular basis.

The “occupational” Greek government is more of a caretaker government that does not implement any structural reforms or sensible privatizations to clamp down on corruption and make “the very rich pay their share,” say an economic analyst and international lawyer, Nick Skrekas.

“I think the more austerity cuts and horizontal cuts to pensions, public sector wages and tax increases are an absolute nightmare,” Skrekas told RT. “It’s like putting an anorexic on a very strict diet. It’s going to backfire.”

Riot police stand during clashes with demonstrators (AFP Photo / Aris Messinis)

AFP Photo / Aris Messinis

Reuters / Yorgos Karahalis

AFP Photo / Aris Messinis

A protester throws a Molotov cocktail at riots police (AFP Photo / Aris Messinis)

Comments (27)

NO AUSTERITY 05.04.2012 18:32

If the IMF or the European Central Bank come to the people of a collapsing European nation and tell them to sacrifice their pensions and their savings and their very standard of living all for a debt that their government has fraudulently racked up in their name, no one would go for it, and rightly so.

But tell those same people that they need to implement "austerity measures" in order to "get back on their feet" economically, and many will be willing to live in the harshest of conditions, content to put up with the dismantling of their nation itself in the vain hope that by giving more power to the international financial institutions they can somehow avoid economic collapse...

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HoloHoax 05.04.2012 18:18

Since Holocaust Survivors or their family got paid billions of dollars from Germany, Poland, France and other backward European countries. I want Jews to pay for the Lenin's genocide for exterminating 10 million Russian Orthodoxs. PAY NOW

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Kosher Nostra Scam 05.04.2012 18:08

Did you know that there is such thing as Jewish Tax on almost every food product; look for the label "Parve, K, Kosher and U". It's true, pick up a box of crackers and look for the label and then google what the label means. The world economic collapse was caused by the Jewish financial sectors; who were careless, because Jews don't care for gentiles (non-jews). Our mission is to work like slaves for them so they can make money. The whole Jewish population regardless where they are from, got money from the Holocaust (regardless if they had family killed by Hitler or not). Ask yourself this? Why is it that every Jew you meet is better off than a non-Jew? Ask yourself who caused all these wars, turmoils, financial crisis? Why is Israel the only country in Middle East region or even Asia, who has a GDP equivalent to USA?

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