![]() ![]() He strongly denied that his son had been involved in terrorism. “Before that night he was an innocent after it, he became politicised, it was not something he could forget.” “Nikos could have been hit by that bullet, but it was Alexis instead,” said Romanos. Within days, demonstrations had escalated into rioting as protesters – deploring the police shooting but also giving vent to a profound disaffection – went on the rampage, participating in a wave of violence that soon spread across Greece and into the rest of Europe. ![]() Nikos was a chubby-faced 15-year-old when his friend, Alexis Grigoropoulos, died in his arms after the two privately educated boys had a run-in with the police in Exarcheia, a district renowned for its anarchist havens, graffiti and nightclubs. What happened that evening is so deeply ingrained in the minds of many Greeks and especially my family,” he said, recalling that his son had gone off the rails soon afterwards. “They say ‘remember, remember the sixth of December’, but you know, we don’t need to remember because we cannot forget it. The night of 6 December 2008 was one that, for many, would change the face of Greece. If the authorities had allowed him to pursue his studies, which is his right, none of this would have happened.” “What seems absurd gives meaning to people. “My son is very angry and very bright and very conscious of what he is doing,” said his father, running his hands through his hair. The refusal spurred the young Romanos to launch his hunger strike on 10 November. Their anger was directed at the rejection by the government of Romanos’s request for leave from jail to pursue an education after winning a hard-earned place at Athens’ School of Business Administration. By Friday, municipal, university and union buildings had been occupied by anarchist sympathisers. In the gangly young Nikos Romanos – who was sentenced to 16 years for the robbery and only narrowly escaped charges of being a member of an urban guerrilla gang known as Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire – those protesters appear to have found a candidate for martyrdom. Dozens of shops were damaged and nearly 100 demonstrators were detained. A cloud of smoke billowed into the sky from the clashes. As protesters marked the sixth anniversary of the police killing of teenager Alexandros Grigoropoulos – an event that would trigger weeks of violence widely seen as the prelude to Greece’s great economic crisis – the 58-year-old acknowledged that the desire for a martyr is real among the country’s growing contingent of angry, unemployed youth.Ĭlashes between 6,000 protesters and riot police erupted in central Athens on Saturday as teargas and water cannon were used to beat back protesters in the bohemian Exarchia neighbourhood, where about 200 black-clad youths hurled stones and molotov cocktails. Death is not a word that crosses the dentist’s lips as he describes the descent of his son – his only child – from being a ski-loving model student to mascot for a seething segment of Greeks baying for a fight with officialdom at large.īut “martyrdom” is a distinct possibility. ![]()
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