Riot police used tear gas yesterday to break up a demonstration by hundreds of southern Attica residents protesting against the government’s allowing a luxury resort in Lagonissi, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Athens, exclusive use of a local beach. The attack took place when protesters tried to enter the Lagonissi Grand Resort Hotel grounds. Kalyvia Mayor Petros Filippou and Synaspismos Left Coalition leader Nikos Constantopoulos spoke at the protest, which was also attended by Eastern Attica Prefect Leonidas Kouris. Filippou later accused police of mounting a “barbaric attack” on protesters.

Military authorities on Mount Hymettus, above the eastern outskirts of Athens, on Saturday arrested three foreign students outside the perimeter fence of installations used by the air force, apparently on suspicion of espionage. Officials were particularly interested in the fact that the students — two men from Germany and Poland and a woman from France who were attending courses at the Athens University of Economics and Business — had a camera with them. The detainees said they had just been walking on the hill, which is popular with Athens hikers.

A German national was charged on Saturday with trying to smuggle a gun onto an aircraft, after Athens airport officials found a pistol and 110 rounds of ammunition in his luggage on Friday. The man, who was not named, was headed from Hamburg to Crete.

Police on the northern Aegean island of Lemnos have broken a ring that forced young women from Eastern Europe into prostitution. Police said yesterday they had arrested one suspected gang member on Lemnos and a second in the Eastern Macedonian port of Kavala. The arrests followed information from a military official serving on Lemnos, who said the gang had forced him to pay 9,000 euros in ransom for one of their victims with whom he had fallen in love and wanted to marry. Police freed five young Russian women.