Seven people were arrested in the early hours of Friday following clashes between residents of Athens' anarchist Exarcheia community and police amid the new government's crackdown on refugees and self-governing spaces, media reported
ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th August, 2019) Seven people were arrested in the early hours of Friday following clashes between residents of Athens' anarchist Exarcheia community and police amid the new government's crackdown on refugees and self-governing spaces, media reported.
Exarcheia is a well-known alternative neighborhood in central Athens, which is home to many refugees, artists, and squatters. Following the recent election of conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the post of prime minister, who vowed to clean up the neighborhood for allegedly being a hot spot for drugs and criminal activities, police have been conducting raids in Exarcheia.
According to the Naftemporiki news outlet, anarchists threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at a police station. In return, police used tear gas against the anarchists.
On Monday, police detained at least 143 migrants from the neighborhood. According to the media reports, the migrants would be transferred to state facilities, following identification with local authorities.
Following the arrival of thousands of refugees to Athens in 2015, the anarchists squat movement in the city, which has been active since the 1980s, opened several empty buildings in Exarcheia to house refugees, offering migrants an alternative to official refugee camps. Currently, there are over 20 refugee and anarchist squats in the neighborhood which house over 1,000 people.
