Greek police routinely use unnecessary or excessive force against peaceful protesters and journalists, causing serious physical and psychological harm, according to a new Amnesty International report that calls for a ban on stun grenades in crowd control.
The report, titled “Protests are not battlefields: Patterns of unlawful use of force by police and impunity in Greece,” argues that such practices are enabled by protest laws that fall short of international standards and by a “persistent culture of impunity” among police.
“The right to freedom of peaceful assembly in Greece is being blatantly violated both in law and in practice,” said Kondylia Gogou, Amnesty International’s regional researcher for Europe. She said peaceful protesters are “arbitrarily detained, criminalized and subjected to unlawful use of force at the hands of the police.”
Gogou added that “footage and testimonies we have documented reveals a pattern of dangerous deployment of stun grenades and misuse of batons and other less lethal weapons,” which she said has led to a range of injuries, with journalists also affected. She warned that these practices, combined with impunity, are having “a chilling effect on the right to peaceful protest.”
