Greece Concerned About Outbreak of Violence
Authorities in Greece are expressing grave concerns about an outbreak of extremist violence directed against journalists, political entities and government institutions, believed to be triggered by unrest over the nation’s austerity measures.
Gunmen early Monday (January 14th) fired at least nine shots at the office of New Democracy leader and Prime Minister Antonis Samaras at the New Democracy headquarters. One bullet, from a Kalashnikov assault rifle, pierced a window. Security guards said they saw two men getting out of a car, which was believed stolen and torched in a nearby neighborhood, but nobody was arrested.
There were 17 firebomb attacks over the previous weekend, including at the Crete office of the major opposition party Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), as well as against other offices of New Democracy and one of its coalition partners, the PASOK Socialists.
And a group called Militant Minority-Lovers of Lawlessness claimed responsibility for bombings of journalists’ homes that came after police pushed squatters out of an abandoned building popular with Leftist and anarchist groups who had used it for two decades, and for another on the home of ex-Finance Minister Yiannos Papantoniou in December. Last month, the offices of the neo-Nazi extreme right Golden Dawn party was bombed.
More: Greece Concerned About Outbreak of Violence (SETimes.com)