The time is 14:19-MON 07/APRIL 2003 in Athens, Greece (G.M.T. + 2) and both Greek INDY ports (athens.indymedia.org & thessaloniki.indymedia.org) are still down, following the brutal suppression of the big antiwar rally of Thursday 03-April-2003.

The only independent information site of Greece is offline for more than 5 days. Fears have bean expressed that Greek police and government as well as the U.S. National Security Agency are connected this, since the sites went down after the violent suppresion of the demonstration outside the U.S. Thursday afternoon (circa 15:30). Police used dozens of tear gas rounds to disperse the protesters gathered ouside the embassy, aimed at various groups of demonstrators including junior high-school students. Even without the participation of the Greek Communist Party-KKE who staged their own rally later in the evening the rally had several thousands of participants from all other political parties as well as independent political/social groups and workers' syndicates (the rally was connected to an anti-war 24-hour general strike of ADEDY).
Meanwhile the corporate-controlled Media sought to understate the size and importance of the rally justifying the police intervention by blaming the usual "known-unknown anarchist troublemakers".
INDY sites might well be the target of government suppression as the only truly independent/non government-controlled newsgroup in Greece. Ever since the beginning of the war it has provided full coverage of the demonstrations in Greece and has attracted a lot of people who seek information for news and upcoming events. As a result early attempts to view the site were considered problematic due to heavy web traffic. After the mobilization of people who use IMC Athens and IMC Thessaloniki a few explanations were given but following the violence of Thursday and the episodes at Suda, Crete a lot of people are still worried and/or distrustfull of the fate of IMC.
Very few unpleasant episodes have been noted in the past weeks (for perhaps the first time in Greece) due to the large participation of the otherwise unpolitical average Greek citizens, thereby restraining the everwilling crowd-control police units to take action. The fact that KKE did not participate in the rally is considered to be indicative of pre-planned action (KKE is a full-time parliamentary party and its organized members rarely conflict with police forces, often helping to maintain "peace and order" in demonstrations throughout Greece). More is yet to come..