Civil disobedience

A resident of the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos has been identified as one of the assailants in a vandalism attack last month against riot police officers sent there to quell unrest over plans to build a new migrant facility.

Nikola Grdinic - civil society activist and a leader of the 'Odupri se' movement

Grdinic. Photo: BIRN

Students at a vocational training school in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, were staging a sit-in on Tuesday to protest the possibility of criminal charges being brought against a fellow pupil in the wake of the release of a video showing him verbally assaulting a teacher.

Draft legislation to be discussed during a cabinet meeting Monday is expected to put forward a series of measures to ensure that strikes on public transport and street protests do not create inordinate upheaval for city-dwellers.

The right to strike is sacrosanct. It is an accomplishment of the labor movement and one of the most important democratic means that employees possess to exert pressure for their demands to be met. For strikes, protests and all sorts of marches with demands to be effective, broad social support is needed, as it increases the political pressure on the government to respond to those demands.

Hundreds of high school students formed human chains on the streets of Hong Kong today in support of the anti-government protests following a week of clashes in the Chinese-ruled metropolis, Reuters reported.

The metro stations, which were closed yesterday during violent clashes between protesters and police, have reopened today.

Hong Kong police fired tear gas on July 27 at protesters holding a banned rally against suspected triad gangs who beat up pro-democracy demonstrators near the Chinese border last weekend, tipping the finance hub further into chaos.

Hong Kong police on July 22defended their actions and the lack of arrests after opposition lawmakers said police had failed to protect a train full of anti-government protesters from a triad gangster attack on July 21.

Tens of thousands of protesters paralysed central Hong Kong on June 12, blocking major roads in a defiant show of strength against government plans to allow extraditions to China.

Convicted November 17 terrorist Dimitris Koufodinas was on Friday taken to the intensive care unit of the Volos General Hospital after feeling unwell, according to reports.