TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Greek police accused of brutality after another boy shot
Change Size
A
nger at a 16-year-old Roma boy being shot in the head by Greek police on Monday after driving away from a petrol station without paying has again thrown a spotlight on alleged police brutality in the country.
The shooting is the latest in a long line of controversial incidents and comes a year after another Roma youth was killed near the port of Piraeus, also after a police chase.
As the 16-year-old boy fought for his life in hospital following the shooting, members of his family clashed with police in the second city of Thessaloniki and protesters later on Monday night threw petrol bombs.
Police claim they opened fire on the teenager to stop the pick-up truck he was driving from hitting officers on motorbikes as he tried to get away.
The shooting comes as protests will be held in several Greek cities on Tuesday to mark the death of another teenager, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, who was shot and killed by police in 2008.
And last month mobile phone footage taken from an Athens balcony showed riot police beating a group of visiting Aris Thessaloniki football fans, apparently without provocation.
Police station rape
In October, a 19-year-old woman accused two officers of raping her inside an Athens police station.
Anger mounted when a lawyer representing one of the officers, who are free pending trial, said the alleged victim had "flirted" with the suspects and they had "succumbed to the girl's fantasy".
Despite the growing disquiet at police behavior and seeming impunity, the country's leaders seem at pains to play down the problem.
Lefteris Oikonomou, the country's deputy citizen's protection minister, last month insisted Greek police were "governed by democratic ethics, respect for human rights and stand close to citizens."
And last year after the first Roma youth was killed, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis bristled at criticism.
"The police are simply doing their job," he told Mega TV. "Of course, there is very significant room for improvement [...] with more training, transparency and means."
But in September Greek bar associations complained of a "steady increase in cases of police violence" and said even lawyers were being targeted.
The Greek ombudsman's office – the independent watchdog tasked with defending citizens' rights – said it had received over 300 new police abuse complaints last year, a 17-percent increase over 2020.
In many cases, the independent authority found that internal police investigations "failed to seek out key witnesses including coroners, and to adequately evaluate medical findings" or other evidence of alleged abuse.
'Hooded Robocops'
The ombudsman's report also found that migrants were "systematically" targeted by police, that illegal use of arms and beatings were often "hushed up" and that officers routinely showed "disdain" when called upon to testify in court.
Out of nearly 140 cases of police violence and brutality investigated last year, only 22 ended in sanctions, the report added.
Greek police did not respond to AFP questions about the issue.
In a 2019 incident that shocked Greece, police stormed the home of award-winning film director Dimitris Indares in a pre-dawn raid to clear a squat next door.
Indares said "hooded Robocops" had beaten him and his two sons up after failing to catch the squatters.
Outrage over the incident, which was caught on film, prompted the formation of a special investigative committee, which included senior officers.
It reported alarmingly high levels of police "impunity" in Greece.
