Rioting youths in the Greek capital attacked a police station, stores and banks and fought running battles with officers as violence continued through the night.
The violent protests sparked by the police killing of a 15-year-old boy broke out as candlelit vigils were being held to mark a week since the shooting of Alexandros Grigoropoulos.
At 11pm yesterday, police suddenly charged the peaceful candlelight vigil in Syntagma Square in central Athens, when the crowd of several hundred people refused to leave its position near parliament. The protesters retreated, but the tense confrontation continued.
Youths — some on foot, others riding motorcycles — attacked a police station with petrol bombs as well as at least three banks, several stores and a government building, police said.
Several hundred protesters set up burning barricades and attacked police with rocks and flares. Riot police fired tear gas and chased the youths through parts of the city. The protesters chanted "Murderers out" and used laser pointers to target police for attack.
Violence has wracked Greece every day since the death of Grigoropoulos. The riots in cities throughout the country have left at least 70 people injured. Hundreds of stores have been smashed and looted and more than 200 people have been arrested.
While most of the protesters have been peaceful, the tone of the demonstrations has been set by a violent fringe, with more young people willing to join those fringe elements than in the past.
Hundreds of schoolchildren holding candles gathered peacefully yesterday outside parliament and at the site where the teenager was shot. At the latter site, hundreds of masked self-styled anarchists gathered among the largely peaceful crowd and, on leaving, clashed with riot police which, in turn, used copious amounts of tear gas to clear the area.
Some of the rioters entered the National Technical University nearby from which they pelted police with rocks and flares.
Outside parliament, they left candles spelling out the name "Alex" in front of a line of riot policemen.
The young protesters promised to remain on the streets until their concerns — including opposition to increasingly unpopular government and worry over economic issues — are addressed.
"Speaking as an anarchist, we want to create those social conditions that will generate more uprisings and to get more people out in the streets to demand their rights," said 32-year-old protester Paris Kyriakides.
"In the end, the violence that we use is minimal in comparison to the violence the system uses, like the banks."
Earlier a crowd of about 1,000 people demonstrated in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
One 16-year-old student at the Athens demonstration, who gave only her first name, Veatriki, said young people her age felt their voices were being heard immediately when they smashed a shop window or a car.
She said young people wanted to see the policemen involved in the shooting punished and the police disarmed.
The two officers involved in the boy's shooting have been arrested. One was charged with murder and the other as an accomplice. The circumstances surrounding the shooting remain unclear.
PA