Police to protect the media
Greece’s chief of police yesterday ordered that security should be beefed up outside newspaper and other media offices following Wednesday’s anarchist firebomb attack on the central Athens offices of a right-wing daily. Under instructions issued by Lt. Gen. Fotis Nasiakos, officers in uniform and special guards will be placed on duty outside media buildings, while unmarked police cars will carry out regular patrols in the vicinity of media offices. Riot police squads will also be on standby to prevent attacks such as Wednesday’s raid by a group of masked and hooded youths on the Apoyevmatini offices on Feidiou Street. Nobody was injured in the petrol bomb attack, which damaged the ground floor of the Apoyevmatini building. But in a statement made public yesterday, the Attica police officers’ union expressed reluctance to guard media offices, arguing that «these enterprises, as true companies that are out to make a profit, should take measures for their own security.» «Police contribution should be supplementary,» the statement said.
