Thread: Riots Spread From Greece Across Europe

Riots Spread From Greece Across Europe

By PAUL HAVEN
,
AP
posted: 4 HOURS 25 MINUTES AGO
comments: 133

MADRID, Spain (Dec. 11) - The unrest that has gripped Greece is spilling over into the rest of Europe, raising concerns the clashes could be a trigger for opponents of globalization, disaffected youth and others outraged by the continent's economic turmoil and soaring unemployment.

Protesters in Spain, Denmark and Italy smashed shop windows, pelted police with bottles and attacked banks this week, while in France, cars were set ablaze Thursday outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux, where protesters scrawled graffiti warning about a looming "insurrection."



A police officer, left, stands by a shop with smashed windows in Madrid, Spain, on Wednesday. Protesters attacked banks, shops and a police station in an apparent show of support for Greeks angered over the police killing of a teenager in Athens.

At least some of the protests were organized over the Internet, showing how quickly the message of discontent can be spread, particularly among tech-savvy youth. One Web site Greek protesters used to update each other on the locations of clashes asserted there have been sympathy protests in nearly 20 countries.

More demonstrations were set for Friday in Italy, France and Germany.
Still, the clashes have been isolated so far, and nothing like the scope of the chaos in Greece, which was triggered by the police killing of a teenager on Saturday and has ballooned into nightly scenes of burning street barricades, looted stores and overturned cars.

Nevertheless, authorities in Europe worry conditions are ripe for the contagion to spread.

As Europe plunges into recession, unemployment is rising, particularly among the young. Even before the crisis, European youths complained about difficulty finding well-paid jobs — even with a college degree — and many said they felt left out as the continent grew in prosperity.
In Greece, demonstrators handed out fliers Thursday listing their demands, which include the reversal of public spending cuts that have brought more layoffs, and said they were hopeful their movement would spread.

"We're encouraging nonviolent action here and abroad," said Konstantinos Sakkas, a 23-year-old protester at the Athens Polytechnic, where many of the demonstrators are based. "What these are abroad are spontaneous expressions of solidarity with what's going on here."

Across the continent, Internet sites and blogs have popped up to spread the call to protest.

Several Greek Web sites offered protesters real-time information on clash sites, where demonstrations were heading and how riot police were deployed around the city. Protest marches were arranged and announced on the sites and via text message on cell phones.

In Spain, an anti-globalization Web site, Nodo50.org, greeted visitors with the headline "State Assassin, Police Executioners" and told them of hastily called rallies Wednesday in Barcelona and Madrid.

"We stand in solidarity" with the Greek protesters, the site said.

Elsewhere in Europe, reports about the clashes in Greece were quickly picked up online by citizen journalists, some of whom posted details of confrontations on Twitter. At the Independent Media Center, photos and video of the demonstrations were uploaded and plans were listed for "upcoming solidarity actions" in London, Edinburgh and Berlin.

One writer on the site london.indymedia.org exhorted people to follow the Greek example and "reclaim the streets. Burn the banks that robbed you ... It is a great opportunity to expand the revolution in all europe."

"What's happening in Greece tends to prove that the extreme left exists, contrary to doubts of some over these past few weeks," French Interior Ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet told The Associated Press.
But, he added, the coming days and weeks would determine whether "there's a danger of contagion of the Greek situation into France."

In cities across Europe, protests flared in solidarity with the demonstrations in Greece.

One rally outside the Greek Embassy in Rome turned violent on Wednesday, damaging police vehicles, overturning a car and setting a trash can on fire. In Denmark, protesters pelted riot police with bottles and paint in downtown Copenhagen; 63 people were detained and later released.

And in Spain, angry youths attacked banks, shops and a police station in Madrid and Barcelona late Wednesday. Some of the protesters chanted "police killers" and other slogans. Eleven people — including a Greek girl — were arrested at the two rallies, which drew a total of about 200 protesters.

Daniel Lostao, president of the state-financed Youth Council, an umbrella organization of Spanish youth groups, said young people in Spain face daunting challenges — soaring unemployment, low salaries and difficulty in leaving the family nest because of expensive housing.

Still, he said he doubted the protests in Spain would grow.

"We do not have the feeling that this is going to spread," Lostao said. "Let's hope I am not wrong."

In France, protesters set fire to two cars and a garbage can filled with flammable material outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux Thursday and scrawled graffiti threatening more unrest, Greek Consul Michel Corfias said.

Graffiti reading "solidarity with the fires in Greece," was scrawled on the consulate and the word "insurrection" was painted on the doors of neighboring houses.

"The events in Greece are a trigger" for French youth angry by their own lack of economic opportunity, Corfias said.

Associated Press reporters Matt Moore in Berlin, Daniel Woolls in Madrid, Ariel David in Rome, John Leicester and Jamey Keaten in Paris, and Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report.

http://news.aol.com/article/riots-sprea ... ope/274719

Greece-Related Riots Spread In Europe

Violence Sparked By Greek Teen's Shooting Erupts In Spain, Denmark And France

Comments 14

MADRID, Spain, Dec. 11, 2008

(CBS/AP) Unrest that has gripped Greece for the past six days showed troubling signs of spreading across Europe, as violence erupted in several cities.

Angry youths smashed shop windows, attacked banks and hurled bottles at police in small but violent protests Thursday in Spain and Denmark, while cars were set alight outside a consulate in France. Protesters gathered in front of the Greek Embassy in Rome on Wednesday and some turned violent, damaging police vehicles, overturning a car and setting a trash can on fire.

Authorities say the incidents have been isolated so far, but acknowledge concern that the Greek riots - which started over the police killing of a 15-year-old on Saturday - could be a trigger for anti-globalization groups and others outraged by economic turmoil and a lack of job opportunities.

"What's happening in Greece tends to prove that the extreme left exists, contrary to doubts of some over these past few weeks," French Interior Ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet told The Associated Press. "For the moment, we can't go farther with our conclusions and say that there's a danger of contagion of the Greek situation into France. All of that is being watched."

A Greek court has ordered two policemen to be held in jail pending trial for the teenager's fatal shooting. One officer has been charged with murder while the other has been charged as an accomplice. No trial date has been set.

As Europe plunges into recession, unemployment is rising, particularly among the young. Even before the crisis, European youths complained about difficulty finding well paid jobs - even with a college degree - and many said they felt left out as the continent grew in prosperity.

At least some of the protests appear to have been organized over the Internet, showing how quickly a message can be spread, particularly among tech-savvy youth. One Web site that Greek protesters have been using to update each other claims there have been sympathy protests in nearly 20 countries.

"We're encouraging nonviolent action here and abroad," said Konstantinos Sakkas, a 23-year-old protester at the Athens Polytechnic, where many of the demonstrators are based. "What these are abroad are spontaneous expressions of solidarity with what's going on here."

In Denmark, protesters pelted riot police with bottles and paint in downtown Copenhagen at a rally late Wednesday. Some 63 people were detained and later released.

And in Spain, angry youths attacked banks, shops and a police station in separate demonstrations in Madrid and Barcelona late Wednesday that each drew about 200 people.

Some of the protesters chanted "police killers" and other slogans. Eleven people - including a Greek girl - were arrested at the two rallies, and two police officers were lightly injured.

We're encouraging nonviolent action here and abroad. What these are abroad are spontaneous expressions of solidarity with what's going on here.
Konstantinos Sakkas, protester
The Barcelona daily La Vanguardia said the protests had been convened over the Internet.

Daniel Lostao, president of the state-financed Youth Council, an umbrella organization of Spanish youth groups, said young people in Spain face daunting challenges - soaring unemployment, low salaries and difficulty in leaving the family nest because of expensive housing.

Still, he said he doubted the protests in Spain would grow.

"We do not have the feeling that this is going to spread," Lostao said. "Let's hope I am not wrong."

In France, protesters set fire to two cars and a garbage can apparently stuffed with flammable material outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux early Thursday and scrawled graffiti on the building threatening more unrest, Michel Corfias, the Greek consul, told The Associated Press.

"It was a very, very intense fire," Corfias said, adding that it severely damaged the building's front door.

Graffiti sprayed on the consulate's garage door read "solidarity with the fires in Greece, the insurrection to come," he said, and the word "insurrection" was painted on the doors of neighboring houses.

Corfias said police suspect the attack is linked to events in Greece, and that it might have been carried out by youths unhappy with globalization and economic difficulties in France.

"The events in Greece are a pretext, in my opinion," he said. "The events in Greece are a trigger."

Elsewhere in Europe, more than 15 people occupied a Greek consulate in Berlin on Monday, hanging a banner out the window with the dead Greek teenager's name and the words, "Killed by the State." Youths clad in black appeared occasionally at a consulate balcony, exchanging chants with more than 50 protesters gathered on the street below.

About 100 people protested outside the Greek consulate in Frankfurt on Tuesday evening and minor violence was reported on the peripheries of the demonstration, including the breaking of a bank's window.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/ ... 2086.shtml

Several Greek Web sites offered protesters real-time information on clash sites, where demonstrations were heading and how riot police were deployed around the city. Protest marches were arranged and announced on the sites and via text message on cell phones.

I would never condone riots, but this is an example of the internet being our only true source to alert the people of the corruption taking place in Washington, if they have not figured that out already. And I truly believe, the internet will be taken away from us in the not too distant future. So times "a wastin" , we need to start a tax revolt or something to show our displeasure with our Congress.

"What's happening in Greece tends to prove that the extreme left exists, contrary to doubts of some over these past few weeks," French Interior Ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet told The Associated Press.

I've heard tales that there were once a group of North American residents who revolted. Probably just an urban myth.

Greek riots could bode more unrest in Europe

ISTANBUL - As the street protests over the death of a teen in a police shooting rage in Greece, governments are concerned the violence could spread accross Europe. Hundreds of people were detained in Spain, France and Denmark over copycat incidents and politicians are wary of a more revolt.

Greek riots could bode more unrest in Europe As economic crisis tightens its grip on Europe, politicians and analysts fear the street battle raging in Greece could herald a violent winter of discontent elsewhere on the continent.

The Greek riots were triggered by a specific police shooting and sustained by broad opposition to a weak right-wing government, and as such are unlikely to spread directly to other territories. But as of yesterday, hundreds of people were detained across the Europe, including Spain, France and Denmark, as protestors attacked banks, shops, police stations and cars in an apparent show of support for rioting Greeks.

"A violent reaction comparable to what has happened in Greece is possible, if there's some kind of spark to light the fire, such as a youth's death," Roberto d'Alimonte, professor of political science at Florence University told Agence France-Presse. "We can't ignore the phenomenon of imitation, which is very significant right now," Alimonte said. "At the moment, Italian youth is frustrated and worried for its future. The crisis is only going to make this worse."

Greece in far worse situation
In Spain, however, sociologist Andreu Lopez, insisted that the situation in Greece -- where an unstable government is confronted by youth with shrinking prospects -- was far worse than elsewhere. "It would be impossible for what is happening in Greece to happen in Spain," insisted Lopez, co-author of a recent report on young people in Spain. "Young Spaniards have many more opportunities and responses to the situation, even in a time of crisis, whether it be grants for studies, state aid or support from families," AFP quoted the sociologist as saying.

The violence Wednesday night in Madrid and Barcelona was the first in Spain in apparent solidarity with Greek protesters. In the Spanish capital, some 200 people targeted a police station, stores and banks, and officers detained nine people, a police official told the Associated Press.

Arsonists torched two cars outside a Greek consulate in southwestern France yesterday, scrawling slogans in support of the youth riots gripping Athens, according to an account by the Associated Press. Police found graffiti on a wall opposite the consulate, and on a nearby garage door, reading "Support for the fires in Greece," "Insurrection Everywhere" and "The Coming Insurrection."

’Beware of revolt’
Against this background, official in Prime Minister Francois Fillon's office said he was "following the situation carefully," and President Nicolas Sarkozy told ruling party deputies to beware a revolt against falling living standards. According to a lawmaker who dined with the president and his supporters on Wednesday, Sarkozy warned that the crisis could provoke widespread protests. "Just look at what is happening in Greece," he reportedly said.

Meanwhile, Greek offices in Moscow and Rome were hit by firebombs and in Denmark 63 protesters were detained. Police spokesman Michael Paulsen in Copenhagen said some of the 150 people who were demonstrating late Wednesday hurled bottles and paint at riot police.

Just as in Greece, students in France, Italy and Spain have been angered by underfunding in universities. Last month, thousands of young Italians took to the streets to protest youth unemployment of more than 23 percent. France is no stranger to university unrest, and politicians fear protests by middle-class students could re-ignite rioting by the young immigrants.

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/worl ... .asp?scr=1

William,

Do we have a chain contact set up, yet?

Originally Posted by Dianne

I truly believe, the internet will be taken away from us in the not too distant future.

It won't be taken away...just completely controlled, like in China. Contingency plans for alternative communication needs to be establised by internet-based organizations such as ALIPAC. Read article below:


Internet Censorship
By Wayne Madsen
12-9-5

Internet censorship. It did not happen overnight but slowly came to America's shores from testing grounds in China and the Middle East.

Progressive and investigative journalist web site administrators are beginning to talk to each other about it, e-mail users are beginning to understand why their e-mail is being disrupted by it, major search engines appear to be complying with it, and the low to equal signal-to-noise ratio of legitimate e-mail and spam appears to be perpetuated by it.

In this case, "it," is what privacy and computer experts have long warned about: massive censorship of the web on a nationwide and global scale. For many years, the web has been heavily censored in countries around the world. That censorship continues at this very moment. Now it is happening right here in America.

The agreement by the Congress to extend an enhanced Patriot Act for another four years will permit the political enforcers of the Bush administration, who use law enforcement as their proxies, to further clamp censorship controls on the web.






Internet Censorship: The Warning Signs Were Not Hidden

The warning signs for the crackdown on the web have been with us for over a decade. The Clipper chip controversy of the 90s, John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness (TIA) system pushed in the aftermath of 9-11, backroom deals between the Federal government and the Internet service industry, and the Patriot Act have ushered in a new era of Internet censorship, something just half a decade ago computer programmers averred was impossible given the nature of the web. They were wrong, dead wrong.

Take for example of what recently occurred when two journalists were taking on the phone about a story that appeared on Google News. The story was about a Christian fundamentalist move in Congress to use U.S. military force in Sudan to end genocide in Darfur. The story appeared on the English Google News site in Qatar. But the very same Google News site when accessed simultaneously in Washington, DC failed to show the article. This censorship is accomplished by geolocation filtering: the restriction or modifying of web content based on the geographical region of the user. In addition to countries, such filtering can now be implemented for states, cities, and even individual IP addresses.

With reports in the Swedish newspaper Svensa Dagbladet today that the United States has transmitted a Homeland Security Department "no fly" list of 80,000 suspected terrorists to airport authorities around the world, it is not unreasonable that a "no [or restricted] surfing/emailing" list has been transmitted to Internet Service Providers around the world. The systematic disruptions of web sites and email strongly suggests that such a list exists.

News reports on CIA prisoner flights and secret prisons are disappearing from Google and other search engines like Alltheweb as fast as they appear. Here now, gone tomorrow is the name of the game.

Google is systematically failing to list and link to articles that contain explosive information about the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, Al Qaeda, and U.S. political scandals. But Google is not alone in working closely to stifle Internet discourse. America On Line, Microsoft, Yahoo and others are slowly turning the Internet into an information superhighway dominated by barricades, toll booths, off-ramps that lead to dead ends, choke points, and security checks.

America On Line is the most egregious is stifling Internet freedom. A former AOL employee noted how AOL and other Internet Service Providers cooperate with the Bush administration in censoring email. The Patriot Act gave federal agencies the power to review information to the packet level and AOL was directed by agencies like the FBI to do more than sniff the subject line. The AOL term of service (TOS) has gradually been expanded to grant AOL virtually universal power regarding information. Many AOL users are likely unaware of the elastic clause, which says they will be bound by the current TOS and any TOS revisions which AOL may elect at any time in the future. Essentially, AOL users once agreed to allow the censorship and non-delivery of their email.

Microsoft has similar requirements for Hotmail as do Yahoo and Google for their respective e-mail services.

There are also many cases of Google's search engine failing to list and link to certain information. According to a number of web site administrators who carry anti-Bush political content, this situation has become more pronounced in the last month. In addition, many web site administrators are reporting a dramatic drop-off in hits to their sites, according to their web statistic analyzers. Adding to their woes is the frequency at which spam viruses are being spoofed as coming from their web site addresses.

Government disruption of the political side of the web can easily be hidden amid hyped mainstream news media reports of the latest "boutique" viruses and worms, reports that have more to do with the sales of anti-virus software and services than actual long-term disruption of banks, utilities, or airlines.




Internet Censorship in the US: No Longer a Prediction

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco Systems have honed their skills at Internet censorship for years in places like China, Jordan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and other countries. They have learned well. They will be the last to admit they have imported their censorship skills into the United States at the behest of the Bush regime. Last year, the Bush-Cheney campaign blocked international access to its web site -- www.georgewbush.com -- for unspecified "security reasons."

Only those in the Federal bureaucracy and the companies involved are in a position to know what deals have been made and how extensive Internet censorship has become. They owe full disclosure to their customers and their fellow citizens.

http://www.rense.com/general69/intercens.htm
http://waynemadsenreport.com/