In an orgy of collective punishment the Greek police unleashed a brutal attack on Exarcheia, after the end of yesterday's protest march, destroying shops and social centres, evacuating a squat at gunpoint and brutalising the locals.

The police brutality seen on the streets of Exarcheia last evening after the end of the general strike protest march in Athens has been unprecedented and casts serious doubts on the nature of the present regime in Greece which is casting away its democratic veil to expose itself as what it really is: the continuation of the colonel's junta.

After the end of the protest march hundreds of riot and motorised policemen stormed Exarcheia, the down-town neighborhood of Athens associated with radical politics since the start of the 20th century. The police proceeded to brutalise bystanders and people drinking their coffee in the area, while smashing up Exarcheia square's traditional coffee house, despite the fact that it was filled with customers. The video of the police wanton violence can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkQ4YsRlFxI&feature=player_embedded

The locals did not hesitate to heckle the police thugs chanting "junta-junta" and "SS SS". In response the cops retaliated by beating anyone on their way and even invading a block of apartments. According to Ioanna Manoushaka (see photo) she was standing on the front door of the block shouting at the cops that they have made life in the neighborhood unbearable when policemen attacked her with globs breaking her arm and teeth. She then run up the stairs and locked herself in her apartment, but the riot policemen followed her and tried to smash the door for five minutes, while her and her husband, a well known composer, barricaded themselves.

Shouting "tonight we will fuck you", the police then proceeded to invade and smash the Social Centre (Haunt of Immigrants) of Diktio, the "Network of Social and Civil Rights", a left-wing group with many decades of action against state terrorism. According to the announcement of the Diktio, "The government of the IMF and of the junta of the market is trying to exploit the criminal act on the bank and impose a regime of terror in the country. The orgy of police-rule by means of chemical warfare and mass beatings reached its climax this evening in Exarcheia".

At the same time strong police forces surrounded the anarchist squat at Zaimi street above the Polytechneio and proceeded to invade and evacuate it at gunpoint. Reports that the policemen actually shot in the air during the evacuation are not verified. All people inside were arrested.

The practice of collective retaliation to yesterday's popular resistance to the measures is a method characteristic of the Nazi-collaborating government of the 1940s, justifying the now common name shouted at policemen "german-tsoliades" (the death squad brigade of 'tsoliades' under quisling orders)