Beaten youths point to police
Two students were being treated in an Athens hospital for injuries they claim to have suffered at the hands of riot police in the central district of Exarchia early yesterday. The youths claimed to have been attacked at dawn by the officers in a local park, recently created on the site of an old car park. According to police, riot squad officers in the area had earlier come under attack from a group of youths hurling petrol bombs and after that by a second group of youths throwing sticks and stones. Police claimed that the injured youths belonged to the second group. The youths claimed to have had nothing to do with the attack. According to staff at Athens’s Geniko Kratiko hospital, one was given stitches after receiving blows to the head while the other was treated for hand fractures. The park on Navarino Street is the only green space in Exarchia, frequently the scene of clashes between police and self-styled anarchists.
