Clashes Break Out in Athens After Rally Commemorating 1973 Student Uprising

ATHENS (Sputnik) — According to AMNA news agency, after the demonstration commemorating the 1973 student uprising, attended by 13,000 people, had reached the US Embassy, anarchists, who did not take part in the rally, began to throw stones and Molotov cocktails at police officers deployed on the demonstration's route. Police, in response, used tear gas, stun grenades and truncheons against the attackers.

Clashes between police officers and anarchists also took part near the National Technical University of Athens. Nearly 100 people pelted the police with bottles there, after which the officers used tear gas and flash-bang grenades.

​Police have blocked off large parts of Exarchia as clashes take place in the neighborhood after the annual commemoration of the Polytechnic student uprising in Athens, Greece. pic.twitter.com/HIeQWy4buq

​Apart from Athens, clashes also broke out in the Greek cities of Thessaloniki and Patras.

In November 1973, students took over the National Technical University of Athens as a protest against the military junta's interference in the activities of student unions. In the early hours of November 17, a tank crashed the gate of the university's building, killing 24 people and injuring 1,000 more. Hundreds of students have been arrested. Despite the fact that the uprising was suppressed, it led to mass protests which resulted in the end of the dictatorship in the country.

The uprising anniversaries are widely celebrated in Greece every year. The participants of processions traditionally head for the US Embassy, which does nor work on that day, protesting against the US support of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974.