01.01.70
Firefighters doused smoldering buildings and cleanup crews swept
rubble from the streets of central Athens on Monday following a
night of rioting during which lawmakers approved harsh new
austerity measures demanded by bailout creditors to save the nation
from bankruptcy.
Police said rioters destroyed or damaged more than 110
buildings, of which 50 were burned. They included nine listed as
national heritage buildings, mostly in the neoclassical style,
while 30 stores were looted.
Smoke still rose from the remains of a landmark 1870 building
which had housed one of the capital's most loved cinemas, the
Attikon, since 1916. About 100 people held a candle-light protest
outside the gutted structure late Monday.
"Criminals targeted all that was best in the city of Athens, its
neoclassical monuments," said Thanassis Davakis, cultural policy
chief of the conservative New Democracy party, a coalition
government partner. "The damage must be swiftly redressed and the
city's memory restored.
Source: Wisconsin State Journal