Violence flares again in Athens

Students attacked at least five police stations across Athens in a renewal of clashes over the police shooting of a 15-year-old boy.

The attacks follow five days of rioting across Greece that damaged or destroyed hundreds of stores and injured about 70 people.

They came as clean-up teams used surgical masks and scarves to protect themselves from tear gas chemicals in as they cleared Athens’ streets of rocks and barricades.

Tension remained, with high school and university students planning sporadic road closures across the capital. Students were also staging occupations at schools and universities.

Violence at demonstrations is not unusual in Greece, where the right to protest is considered an intrinsic part of democracy.

But the recent rioting, with bands of youths marauded through cities across Greece, has shocked the country’s generally tolerant public.

The police and government are now under intense scrutiny, despite saying they had acted in the public’s best interests and went out of their way to avoid bloodshed amid an unprecedented explosion of rage. The government also faced a crippling general strike yesterday.

Two officers involved in the teenager’s shooting were taken into custody yesterday. One was charged with murder, and the other with acting as an accomplice.

One of their lawyers has said said that a ballistics examination showed the teenager was killed by a ricochet and not a direct shot.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis’ conservative government is under threat, with just a single-seat majority in the 300-member Parliament. The government had already been facing widespread opposition before the riots, after a series of financial scandals and unpopular economic, pension and education reforms.

Mr Karamanlis has ignored calls for early elections.