She was released, but her flowers withered away in the police car. She repeatedly asked whether she had done anything illegal, and received no response. Oshana was prevented from reaching the site and then taken to a police station in a squad car. Maria Oshana, who heads the Athens of Germany's Rosa Luxemburg foundation, had arrived with a friend to lay a flower. It appeared that officers had been ordered to arrest anyone who wished to lay flowers at the site where the police had murdered Grigoropoulos - even people who arrived in the formally permitted groups of two or three, even people who showed up alone. The officer's partner was convicted as an accomplice to the killing of Grigoropoulos Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Handout Family Rampant police violence Medical staff working overtime in the city's strained hospitals, in contrast, received no extra pay. Still, Sunday's show of force cost taxpayers a lot, with entire police units on overtime and helicopters noisily circling Athens. They fear for their health during the pandemic and their financial livelihood. ![]() Greeks have witnessed over a decade of protests, including those that followed the teenager's murder and mass demonstrations against the austerity measures demanded by the country's international creditors. ![]() The government's supporters approve of this law-and-order stance. Given that his management of the coronavirus pandemic has not been very successful so far, officials seem eager to cast themselves as proponents of domestic security. The neoliberal government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis seems happy spend tax money on law-and-order measures. Parliament did not get to debate that: The government, as it frequently has, used the state of emergency to justify the decision and prevent a vote. Helenic Police Chief Michail Karamalakis had banned gatherings of more than three people. Further restrictions were imposed specifically for December 6. Since Greece's second coronavirus shutdown came into effect this autumn, demonstrations have officially been prohibited for public health reasons. "Of 5,000 officers," Chrisochoidis said, "4,999 did a good job." Still, he downplayed police conduct in a year when coronavirus restrictions meant that public commemorations of the teenager's murder were banned. ![]() The publicity compelled Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis to convene an inquiry committee. ![]() The video of the police officer was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Sunday alone. That a police officer desecrated the woman's tribute to a deceased person is simply unforgivable in the birth country of Sophocles, the Ancient Greek playwright who created Antigone - a tragedy that all children read in school, in which the title character chooses death over dishonoring the dead. December 6 has since become a day to commemorate his life and protest police violence in Greece: a day when flowers are laid at the site where the officer murdered Grigoropoulos The officer was charged with and later convicted of murder, and the killing sparked an uprising with long-running repercussions. He had taken the flowers from to a woman who had wanted to lay them at the spot where, on December 6, 2008, police murdered 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos after an argument. A video filmed on Sunday shows an officer destroying a bunch of flowers and then throwing the remains on the street in disdain. It would not take much to destroy what little trust Greeks still have in the police.
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