'Violence'에 해당되는 글 2건

  1. 2008.12.10 Violence flares at Greek teen's funeral by CEOinIRVINE
  2. 2008.11.26 Violence Against Journalists Grows in Mexico's Drug War by CEOinIRVINE

ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- Protests and fighting in Greece over the police shooting death of a teen-age boy flared again Tuesday as rioters clashed with police in front of the parliament building and at the boy's funeral.

Tear gas fills the air near where the teen's funeral service was held.

Tear gas fills the air near where the teen's funeral service was held.

Thousands paid their respects to the boy at his funeral, but a small number of protesters there grew violent at the end of the ceremony.

Some 10,000 people marched on the country's parliament in Athens on Tuesday to express their anger over the teenager's death, and also other issues like the economy, jobs, and allegations that the government is corrupt.

Groups clashed with riot police at the parliament and across central Athens.

Street riots started over the weekend after Athens police killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Saturday. Six young protesters had pelted a police patrol car with stones, and the teen was shot as he tried to throw a fuel-filled bomb at the officers.

While the shooting occurred in a neighborhood where there have been regular clashes with police, it immediately sparked clashes and riots in Athens and Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city. The violence then spread to other municipalities.

The events have exacerbated the unpopularity of the ruling party and left Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis scrambling to shore up support

On Tuesday, he met with President Karolos Papoulias and cabinet members before briefing political leaders on the country's security situation.

Cleaning crews worked for hours early Tuesday to clear the mess left by the riots, but evidence of the violence remained. In some places, entire rows of shops still have broken windows.

The mayor of Athens asked residents not to dispose of garbage for a day because many of the city's trash bins were destroyed in the violence.

Karamanlis vowed again Tuesday that those responsible for the violence would be punished. Photo See images of anarchy on Greek streets »

"I assured the president that no leniency will be tolerated in holding people accountable," he told reporters. "No one has the right to use this tragic incident as an alibi for actions of raw violence."

Athens police said 12 policemen were injured in Monday's violence and 87 people were arrested. There were 10 flashpoints across Athens where police confronted rioters, police said. Video Watch protesters clash with police »

Many of the young people who rioted holed up at universities, taking advantage of a decades-old rule that bars police from entering university grounds. The rule came into force after tanks crushed a 1973 student uprising protesting the ruling military junta.

The dean of Athens University resigned Tuesday as a result of the students' violent behavior.

Public and private schools and universities across the country were shut again Tuesday. Watch as iReporter witnesses the clashes

Demonstrators torched government buildings and the offices of the ruling conservative party in central Athens. They also set cars and trash containers ablaze.

Monday, young demonstrators barricaded streets in Athens and Thessaloniki and hurled gasoline bombs as they battled police. Clouds of tear gas hung over the capital as police tried to disperse the crowds. iReport.com: Are you there? Share photos, video of rioting

The police officer who fired the fatal shot at the teenage boy has been charged with "manslaughter with intent" and suspended from duty, police said, adding that a second police officer was arrested Saturday on criminal accessory charges.


Government officials, including the interior minister, have condemned the shooting.

Authorities conducted an autopsy on the boy Monday in an effort to clarify the circumstances of the shooting, but the boy's family has called in their own investigators to verify state findings, the Athens coroner told CNN
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Police technicians tend to the body of journalist Armando Rodríguez after he was shot outside his home in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. Police technicians tend to the body of journalist Armando Rodríguez after he was shot outside his home in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. (Associated Pres


CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Armando Rodríguez, at El Diario newspaper, was the top crime reporter in the deadliest city in Mexico. He had seen it all. But this was different. This was personal. Earlier this month, someone had hung the decapitated body of a local drug thug from a bridge on the airport road. Later the head appeared downtown at the Plaza of Journalists, wrapped in a plastic bag, carefully placed at the foot of a statue of a newsboy hawking papers.

Arturo Chacón, a reporter at El Norte, a competing daily in this tough border city, said the message was unmistakable: Journalists beware. "We knew it was bad, but we didn't know how bad," he said. "A week later I heard the shots, and then I heard they got Armando."

Rodríguez, 40, was killed Nov. 13 in front of his home by a single gunman. He was shot 10 times while warming up his car, directly in front of his 8-year-old daughter, as he was about to drive her to school in the morning. The slaying highlighted the growing danger to Mexican journalists reporting on the drug war, which has claimed more than 4,500 lives since President Felipe Calderón unleashed the army and police against the cartels and corrupt officials in early 2007. Most journalists continue to do their jobs but concede they are limiting their coverage of the carnage.

The attacks against journalists, which run from threats hissed on their cellphones to grenades lobbed into their newsrooms, form a new front in the larger war the drug cartels are waging against Mexico's social and government institutions. The resulting damage is undermining Mexican civil society as the rich, powerful cartels compete for control of smuggling routes into the United States, which is consuming all the cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana the cartels can deliver.

Mexican journalists say the threats may serve to muzzle their investigations and stop them from naming names. They also suggest that the cartels are attacking them to demonstrate their own power. For years, Mexican journalists often served as stenographers to the government. Now an increasingly independent press is being weakened by the drug war, just when society may need it most.

Since 2000, 28 journalists have been slain and eight others have disappeared and are assumed dead, according to Ricardo González of the group Article 19, which works to protect freedom of expression in Mexico, now the most dangerous country in Latin America in which to be a journalist. González said, "Journalists are now included among the casualties of this war."

Five reporters have been killed this year. "The border is now a terrifying place to be a journalist, and Juarez is ground zero," said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The extreme violence is fueled by the crackdown on traffickers by the Calderón administration and by a power struggle between two competing cartels, one based in Juarez, the other in Culiacan, bitter enemies engaged in a mafia bloodbath. The United States has pledged $400 million to help Calderón fight the cartels.

A week ago, two grenades exploded outside the offices of El Debate newspaper in Culiacan. No one was injured. "I don't know if they were narcos or if this was an act of revenge or just some jokers. But we think it was a message, a message for all media and the government," said Lucía Mimiaga, editorial director at El Debate. Several newspapers have been attacked by men spraying bullets from machine guns in the past two years.

Editors at many newspapers and television stations now say they no longer deeply investigate the cartels or attempt to plot the intersecting lines of corruption and cash between the drug traffickers and their partners in government, business and law enforcement. News directors insist that organized crime in Mexico now employs all the tools of terrorism -- violence, threats, sophisticated use of media -- to create an atmosphere of fear and impunity.

"I am the first to recognize that this situation is intolerable," Chihuahua state Attorney General Patricia González said in a statement promising to find Rodríguez's killer. Yet the police have arrested no suspects, and none of the journalists interviewed here expect the case to be solved. Rodríguez was not robbed. His editor calls the killing "an assassination."

Reporters along the border say they are routinely threatened in phone calls, e-mails and on Internet comment boards. Many times, the journalists say, they know who is calling but dare not report the warnings to authorities for fear their complaints will be passed to cartel enforcers, who include former and current military and police officers. Many say their families beg them to find other work, or cover sports, business or society news.




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