Major Rioting in Greece (12/23/08)

• Occupied London reports that the various university occupations, now 17 days old, are expected to end later this week, due to fatigue.

• Here's a surprisingly long list of solidarity actions in Russia, including three in Siberia.
  

• Tests comparing the substances found on the bullet that killed 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos on December 6 and materials taken from the scene of the shooting in Exarchia, which sparked this month’s riots, suggest that the policeman charged with the boy’s murder shot at him and not in the air, as he has claimed.

  The results of the laboratory tests, due to be made public next week, reportedly suggest that the bullet hit a surface less than 40 centimeters above the ground before entering the boy’s body. “There is no evidence that a shot was fired in the air,” a source told Kathimerini.

• Here's a report on the campus asylum issue from a conservative Greek newspaper:
  

  The government yesterday refused to take a stance on the thorny issue of university asylum, saying it was an issue for the judiciary and academic community to tackle, as the capital’s main university faculties remained occupied by hundreds of students and self-styled anarchists.

  Meanwhile university deans told Kathimerini that the sit-ins would probably end over Christmas so it would be best to leave things alone.

  “Lifting university asylum is not an issue for the government,” said government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros, adding that “those whose responsibility it is to maintain order and the smooth operation of universities will do their duty.”

  Antonaros was reacting to a decision by an Athens prosecutor on Saturday night to send police into the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), which self-styled anarchists had been using as a base from which to attack riot officers.

  The planned intervention was averted by the NTUA’s dean, Constantinos Moutzouris, who said he feared the presence of police may reignite tension. “We believe that constant dialogue and persuasion are the best solution even in extreme, condemnable situations,” he told Kathimerini.

• More than 3,000 protesters chanting "Cops, Pigs, Murderers" marched through Athens on Tuesday. Earlier Tuesday, shots were fired at a riot police bus in Athens. None of the 19 officers on board was injured, authorities said, but the attack raised concern that violence against police could escalate. Police said the bus came under attack in Athens while passing a university campus. Authorities said they had recovered seven 7.62-millimeter bullet casings.
  

  Tuesday's march kept many stores in downtown Athens closed. A group of youths overturned a police car, but the incident ended without further violence. Protesters set fire to a papier-mache model of a pig wearing a policeman's hat, before the rally ended peacefully. Another protest is planned Wednesday's in the city's main shopping district.

• A group of high-school students staged a rally in front of the education ministry slated to be their last before the holidays.

  The students, who are expected to decide in early January whether or not to pursue their protests over the teenager's death, claim they continue to occupy about 700 schools and several universities in Greece. The education ministry claims only about 100 are occupied.