Mitsotakis meets with islands’ officials as Lesvos lawyers file lawsuit charging riot police violence

The deployment of hundreds of riot police on the islands of Lesvos and Chios was intended as a display of governmental decisiveness in building closed detention centres to house migrants and refugees, but the operation boomeranged with dramatic clashes between islanders and police receiving intense media coverage and mutual recriminations between protesting residents who charged extensive police violence and the public order ministry which announced that over 40 officers were injured.

Nineteen lawyers from Mytilini, the capital of Lesvos, have filed a lawsuit against "all bearing criminal responsibility" detailing acts of violence and egregious violation of police regulations during their operations on the island.

The charges in the lawsuit include unprovoked violence by riot police over three days, the use of chemicals the expiration date of which had passed against protesters, the use (according to citizens' accounts) of ammunition of an undetermined type against protesters [the government denies claims that rubber bullets were used], flares to break up demonstrations, property damage, and cursing the citizens of Lesvos with obscene language.

The lawsuit claims that MAT riot police hurled insults such as "seeds of Turks" [many families were refugees from Asia Minor in 1923], "sons of whores", and "dolts we will screw you". It also charges that authorities disseminated fake news - including the claim that the islanders had taken up guns.

Mitsotakis seeks to defuse tensions, meets with local officials

Today's scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Northern Aegean Prefect Kostas Moutzouris and island mayors was the latest indication that the crisis is spinning out of control and is now being...