Annual protest march in Athens marking 1973 students’ uprising against junta concludes

An annual protest march commemorating a students’ uprising in 1973 against a military junta then ruling Greece concluded in central Athens on Friday evening, with few incidents of violence reported throughout the day.

Previous anniversaries of the November 17 uprising, which took place inside the Athens Polytechnic before the eventual iron-fisted intervention by the dictatorship’s security forces, were often marred by street rioting and vandalism. Minor disturbances were reported at the Athens University’s student halls in the Zografou district, along with small-scale incidents in the cities of Thessaloniki and Patras. At least 20 people were detained in central Athens throughout the day on Friday, according to police.

Some parties and factions, mostly notably the Communist Party (KKE), held separate marches, while self-styled anti-establishment groups rallied at Klafthmonos square before also marching along the protest rally route.

This year’s march again began at the Polytechnic campus itself, off Patission Avenue, winding through the Greek capital’s main boulevards before reaching and surpassing the US embassy, as a large portion of the demonstrators continued on to the Israeli embassy in Athens – a sign of the times, given the ongoing Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Traffic restrictions were lifted at roughly 10 p.m.

Eearlier in the day, Parliament President Costas Tassoulas laid a wreath at a monument within the main Polytechnic premises, in representing Greece’s legislature, as did political party representatives.

One more closely watched development at this year’s commemorative events was the presence of new SYRIZA president Stefanos Kasselakis. Although the leftist party leader didn’t march in the protest rally that ended up at the US embassy, he did lay a wreath at a monument for those jailed and tortured by the junta at the former military police (EAT-ESA) headquarters. The one-time military camp lies along the demonstration route, in what is the current Democracy Park, next to the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron).

“As president of a historic leftist party I feel a responsibility to the people, for us to soon be in government, in order to provide solutions and answers to demands that overlap eras, but which must, at some point, be resolved in the interests of the country and all Greeks,” he said while touring the site.