Category: 2008
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December 2008 Bibliography
Amnesty International. 2009. Alleged abuses in the policing of demonstrations. Amnesty International Andronikidou, A and Kouvas, I. 2012. Cultures of Rioting and Anti-Systemic Politics in Southern Europe. West European Politics. 35(4): 707-725 Apoifis, N. 2017. Anarchy in Athens: An Ethnography of Militancy, Emotions and Violence. Manchester University Press Close, D. 2009. The Riots of December…
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December 2008: The Trial
The calls for justice over the murder of Alexis were a persistent theme in December. One of the causes of the revolt was the history of police violence which the murder recalled and continued. An aspect of this was the belief that police crimes rarely receive proportional punishment. In this case there was the risk…
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December 2008: The Texts of the Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians
The events of December 2008 have often been dismissed as a series of riots with little political content. Those on the streets have been ignored, maligned or criticised for only expressing anger rather than making coherent demands. This view is only really tenable if the words of December’s participants are ignored. For while it is…
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Wednesday 24th December – Wednesday 31st December 2008
It can be said that the December Revolt came to an end with the beginning of the holiday season. While correct this is not entirely true. During the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve there were few major events and the country settled down into a delayed festive calm but here and there the…
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Tuesday 23rd December 2008
Shortly after the attack on Konstantina Kuneva another incident elsewhere in Athens pointed to a different trend. Already there had been an increase in the number of attacks on property using low level explosives or incendiary devices. In the coming months and years this would expand into a wave of guerilla activity. In the early…
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Monday 22nd December 2008
As the debate around the potential storming of the universities and end of the occupations continued an event elsewhere in Athens would take the activity on the streets in a different direction into the new year. This was the brutal acid attack on the trade unionist and worker Konstantina Kuneva. Despite suffering terrible injuries from…
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Sunday 21st December 2008
The clashes in Exarcheia and around the occupied universities continued into the early hours of December 21st. This led to the main question of the day; would the asylum status of university campuses be lifted to allow a police raid? This itself was part of the larger question of how the revolt would end. The…
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Saturday 20th December 2008
This day marked two weeks since the beginning of the revolt and its last major day of widespread action. While the streets of Exarcheia were filled with thousands of people in the evening earlier on activities were more decentralised. A significant number of Athenian neighbourhoods saw local demonstrations on a day which was also given…
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Friday 19th December 2008
Sandwiched between two days of significant protests the 19th saw relatively few large scale actions. However, a number of notable small scale actions took place in central Athens and the neighbourhoods. Almost two weeks on from Alexis’ murder further ballistics examinations continued to cast doubt on the police’s story of what happened on December 6th…
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Thursday 18th December 2008
The thirteenth day of the uprising saw thousands of people again marching and rioting on the streets in response to the calls for protests launched in recent days. Much of the activity of the day focused on Athens, in particular on Syntagma square where the crowds skirmished with the police outside and a polarized debate…
Chronicle of a Crisis 