Political warfare over ban on Polytechnic uprising anniversary march, public gatherings

By George Gilson

On 17 November, 1973 students at the Athens Polytechnic and thousands of others staged an uprising against the colonels' dictatorship (1967-1974), the first major challenge to the junta which protesters then and for decades for decades have viewed as the product of American and Nato backing and interventionism.

Since then thousands have joined an annual commemorative march on the US Embassy in Athens that begins at the old Polytechnic campus with university students carrying the blood-stained Greek flag, splattered when an army tank broke down the heavy iron gate of the campus where the students were holed up and were met with a rain of soldiers' gunfire.

This year was different.

With Greece rocked by the devastating development of the COVID-19 epidemic, with hospitals and especially ICUs nationwide having reached their limit and the National Health System at risk of collapse, the conservative New Democracy government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis took a controversial decision to ban not only the massive annual protest march but also any gathering of over four individuals nationwide for the three day-period during which the anniversary is marked.

The move prompted a political maelstrom with opposition parties crying that the decision that was taken by Citizen's Protection Minister Michalis Chrisohoidis (a tough former Pasok public order minister on whose watch in 2002 the notorious November 17 terrorist organisation) the order issued by Greek Police was authoritarian and unconstitutional.

Chrisohoidis deployed an army of 5,000 policemen throughout Athens to prevent any commemorative gathering or march, shutting down all the streets around the Polytechnic and throughout Athens.

President of the Republic Katerina...

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