transcribed and translated audio report from Thessaloniki live stream
collective_efforts | 20.06.2003 23:16 | Thessaloniki EU | Social Struggles | World
Basis of the personal account is a transcribed and translated audio report from the Thessaloniki IMC Radio Live Stream, about the day of action on Friday, 20th of june.
Tomorrow, on Saturday, there will be 8 meeting points, shattered all over the city.
Besides the political groups we already know of, there will be also a demonstration of university students of architecture and another one by teachers.
It is hard to estimate what exactly will happen, only this is known at the moment
People, who make it to come to Thessaloniki are encouraged to tune in to this radio.
OK, i will now go on with the first resume of the demonstrations along the red zone.
They were given by a german demonstrator.
Militant action was supposed to take place against the red zone.
This is what encouraged many people to come to Thessaloniki.
The German group went to "porte cas" (?), then gathered at the starting point of the demonstration with about 5000 other people.
After standing around in the heat for some hours, they started moving.
In the front of the demonstration there were some people prepared for Disobedienti Actions (as introduced by the italians), meaning they were wearing plastic hats and breathing masks, among other things able to give some pressure to the police, behind this block, there was a block of anarchists and anti-authorists.
The demonstrators walked for quite a while and everything was about how it had been expected.
Then they reached the main street there were two big police cars, about 100 cops and some military on the street.
The Disobedienti started to press themselves against the cops, using rubber tyres.
Suddenly the police started to shoot gas containers, but they did not aim at the first block of the demonstration, where the Disobedientis were, instead they shot into the anarchists block. No one had expected that.
This way the Disobedienti block was separated into two parts. About 80 people of the anarchists block drifted east, the rest was on the other side.
Even for those who had gas masks, breathing and keeping overview became quite difficult.
So everyone started repelling and the police made it to press the demonstrators back to the starting point. Some additional, smaller attempts to get towards the red zone did not work out as there was too much police around for those smaller groups.
The demonstrant said, it was positive that there was a general interest in taking serious action, which was focussed only on reaching the Red Zone.
So much for the frist demonstrator taking part in the demonstration near Thessaloniki.
The other demonstrator went to the macedonian border, in a small group.
They tried to reach the Romanian captives, who want to cross the border from Macedonia to Greece.
When the group came closer to the border ,they came across 40 cops.
The cops stopped them and prevented them from getting closer to the border.
The group was carrying food and first aid kits, which were supposed to be given to the Romanians.
So they tried to convince the cops to let them pass the border.After endless considerations on the police side they agreed to let 5 people of the group cross the border with their passports, bringing the food and medicine over.
There were also smaller struggles with the cops but the group was too small and not well enough prepared to form a resonable threat towards the police.
So they discussed. But even though the greek border controll had allowed a few of them to pass the border, the Macedonian would not.
So there was no way to deliver the goods and the group had to return with both food and medicine.
Besides the political groups we already know of, there will be also a demonstration of university students of architecture and another one by teachers.
It is hard to estimate what exactly will happen, only this is known at the moment
People, who make it to come to Thessaloniki are encouraged to tune in to this radio.
OK, i will now go on with the first resume of the demonstrations along the red zone.
They were given by a german demonstrator.
Militant action was supposed to take place against the red zone.
This is what encouraged many people to come to Thessaloniki.
The German group went to "porte cas" (?), then gathered at the starting point of the demonstration with about 5000 other people.
After standing around in the heat for some hours, they started moving.
In the front of the demonstration there were some people prepared for Disobedienti Actions (as introduced by the italians), meaning they were wearing plastic hats and breathing masks, among other things able to give some pressure to the police, behind this block, there was a block of anarchists and anti-authorists.
The demonstrators walked for quite a while and everything was about how it had been expected.
Then they reached the main street there were two big police cars, about 100 cops and some military on the street.
The Disobedienti started to press themselves against the cops, using rubber tyres.
Suddenly the police started to shoot gas containers, but they did not aim at the first block of the demonstration, where the Disobedientis were, instead they shot into the anarchists block. No one had expected that.
This way the Disobedienti block was separated into two parts. About 80 people of the anarchists block drifted east, the rest was on the other side.
Even for those who had gas masks, breathing and keeping overview became quite difficult.
So everyone started repelling and the police made it to press the demonstrators back to the starting point. Some additional, smaller attempts to get towards the red zone did not work out as there was too much police around for those smaller groups.
The demonstrant said, it was positive that there was a general interest in taking serious action, which was focussed only on reaching the Red Zone.
So much for the frist demonstrator taking part in the demonstration near Thessaloniki.
The other demonstrator went to the macedonian border, in a small group.
They tried to reach the Romanian captives, who want to cross the border from Macedonia to Greece.
When the group came closer to the border ,they came across 40 cops.
The cops stopped them and prevented them from getting closer to the border.
The group was carrying food and first aid kits, which were supposed to be given to the Romanians.
So they tried to convince the cops to let them pass the border.After endless considerations on the police side they agreed to let 5 people of the group cross the border with their passports, bringing the food and medicine over.
There were also smaller struggles with the cops but the group was too small and not well enough prepared to form a resonable threat towards the police.
So they discussed. But even though the greek border controll had allowed a few of them to pass the border, the Macedonian would not.
So there was no way to deliver the goods and the group had to return with both food and medicine.
collective_efforts