JOURNALISTS HIT BY POLICE IN CLASHES AFTER RETIREE'S SUICIDE
ATHENS, April 5, 2012 (AFP) - At least two journalists were roughhandled by riot police during clashes at a protest in Athens that broke out after an elderly man fatally shot himself in an act of apparent debt despair, a police source said Thursday.greek newspapers on Thursday printed excerpts from a note, allegedly found in the pensioner's pocket, in which he accused the government of leaving him in penury and compared the administration to the regime imposed by Greece's Nazi German occupiers in 1941.“I find no other solution for a dignified end before I start sifting through garbage to
He accused the government of leaving him in penury and compared the administration to the regime imposed by Greece's Nazi German occupiers
feed myself,” he had allegedly written in red ink.
Police used tear gas to clear central Syntagma Square on Wednesday night after coming under attack by stone-throwing youths on the sidelines of a spontaneous antigovernment protest held a few hours after the 77-yearold man's shocking suicide.
One of the journalists, who works for state television NET, said riot police had rough-handled media on the scene despite their efforts to identify themselves.
“I identified myself as a journalist but riot police shoved me away nonetheless,” state television NET journalist George Gerafentis told the station's morning show.
“I fell from the sidewalk onto the street, but luckily I was not hurt... unlike my female colleague,” he said.
The station showed footage of a second journalist being pushed to the ground and a riot policeman attempting to kick her.
An investigation has been ordered into the incident, the police source said.
A group of about 50 protesters had thrown stones at police, Gerafentis said. Ten people were detained but later released.
Syntagma Square for two years has been the main rallying point for protests against austerity measures designed to haul Greece from its fiscal crisis.about 1,000 people had poured into the area early in the afternoon, rallied by messages on social media.
They left flowers, candles and handwritten messages at the foot of a cypress tree where the man, a retired pharmacist, had shot himself. Some of the notes called for an “uprising of the people”.