Protesting students make use of law that forbids police from entering the university gates
The city of Athens has been stifled in riots being staged by students over a police shoot out incident that left a teenager dead. The recent protests staged by the students in Athens had the riot squad on the back foot as they the law does not allow them to step foot inside the university gates.
Bonfires burnt inside the gates of Athens’ main university as masked gangs of students piled up on petrol bombs along with broken paving stones they managed to hack from the surrounding neoclassical buildings. The students stood fully equipped and ready to clash against the police forces.
The turmoil that was instigated by the death of a teenager in a police shootout has resulted in the worst civil unrest the country has seen in decades. Along with the improvised weapons of that the students are making use of when staging their protests they have a much bigger and powerful weapon which is the law.
The students have managed to use the decade old law that bans police from entering the gates of the university to their advantage. This has given the student body that consists of men and women, a perfect fortress where they can build up on their improvised armory and stage their protests knowing that the police cannot move in on them.
The student protestors inside the university are not the only ones staging protests in Athens. The streets are filled with opposition party protestors and trade unions who are taking advantage of the situation to demonstrate their resentment against the unpopular ruling party of Greece. The masked youth however have been most violent and disruptive in their protest which seems to be getting more intense everyday.
The area around Athens’ polytechnic university has become an intense battleground between the masked youths and the police forces. While the masked youths are adamant in their fight and feel it to be justified the police desperately seeking a way to make their way around the law that bans them from entering the university campus.
Who could’ve thought that the law passed to guarantee academic freedom would one day be used to create an asylum for gangs of masked youths. The authorities are trying their level best to scrap the law so as that they can get the situation under control.
Riot squad officers ring the police HQ in Athens as students stage the latest in a series of protests that followed the shooting of a schoolboy Picture: Getty Images
