A Greek photographer suffered a serious head injury from a police truncheon during an anti-austerity protest in another case of police brutality against media this week, a police source said Friday. Marios Lolos, a 46-year-old photographer working for the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, is to undergo surgery later in the day, according to the police source and the association of Greek journalist unions Poesy.
Lolos, who also chairs the Greek photojournalists' union, "sustained a cranial injury from a truncheon blow" to the back of the head, Poesy said. Other journalists present said police had cornered a group of media covering the protest on Thursday night and a riot policeman had struck Lolos with the steel handle of his truncheon.
It is a forbidden move that is nevertheless often used by Greek police. Citizen's Protection Minister Michalis Chryssohoidis condemned the incident and said a judicial and internal police investigation had been launched. The incident occurred as several hundred people gathered in Athens to protest against government austerity measures in the name of a 77-year-old pensioner who committed suicide on Wednesday apparently over debt despair.
Another two journalists had been shoved to the ground by police on Wednesday at another demonstration held a few hours after the pensioner shot himself dead. The retired pharmacist killed himself under a cypress tree in Syntagma Square on Wednesday, about hundred metres (yards) from parliament, saying government austerity cuts had "wiped out" his pension and left him in penury. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks have lost their jobs in the last year, and unemployment currently tops one million, a quarter of the workforce.
Debt-wracked Greece has been forced to drastically cut state spending, and has slashed civil servant salaries and pensions by up to 40 percent to secure bailout loan payments from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Police in Greece are regularly accused of rought-handed tactics, particularly against immigrants but also demonstrators and journalists during protests.
Few however are punished for such behaviour. "No trial date has yet been set for my complaint," said Tatiana Bolari, a photojournalist struck in the face by a riot policeman during an October protest. "He hit me with the palm of his hand. Later I was told this is a blow designed to leave no marks on the knuckles. My head snapped back and I was forced to wear a neck brace for eight days."