Outcry over Greek police beating during lockdown patrol

ATHENS: Police clashed with demonstrators in Athens on Sunday night after video footage showing a police officer beating a man during a Covid-19 lockdown patrol went viral.

Police used tear gas to disperse around 500 people who gathered at Nea Smyrni square in the southern Athens suburbs to protest against an incident at the same spot earlier in the day.

Videos showed a police officer hitting a young man hard with a baton at the square, a popular spot for family gatherings.

“I’m in pain,” the young man could be heard shouting, while onlookers expressed outrage at the police officer behaving this way in front of their children.

Police said they had sent a motorcycle patrol to the square “in order to perform checks on the application of measures to prevent and limit the spread of the coronavirus”.

There had been numerous complaints about people violating Covid rules, the force said.

Police said they were attacked by 30 people during the patrol, injuring two officers. Eleven people were detained during the operation.

The officer filmed beating a civilian will face an internal inquiry, police added in a statement.

But the incident sparked fury among opposition politicians who blasted it as an unprovoked act of police violence.

“The country has a government that has totally lost control of the pandemic, and the only thing it knows how to do, according to the plan, is to use a heavy hand,” said ex-premier Alexis Tsipras of the leftwing Syriza party. — AFP