Students and political groups have organized rallies, marches and protests in Athens, Thessaloniki and many other cities today, for the fifth anniversary of the murder of 15-year-old high school student Alexis Grigoropoulos by police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas in Exarchia.

A student rally will take place at the Propylaea, followed by a march to Parliament and a hip-hop concert at 3pm, while a political rally has been scheduled to take place at 6pm.

The metro stations at Panepistmio, Syntagma and Evangelismos will be closed today from 10am today, while many bus and trolley services have been modified to accommodate for the protests. Panepistimiou Street was cordoned off at noon.

In Thessaloniki, the student rally at Kamara took place at 11am, with the leftist and student groups scheduling their political protest at 6pm. Protests and rallies have also been organized in Volos, Patra, Agrinio, Karditsa, Arta and other cities.

Due to the nature of the anniversary, the police have stationed riot units all over Athens. So far there have been some clashes with the police; a small group of protesters assaulting a police officer at the Propylaea gathering and a group of 50 students throwing oranges and one petrol bomb against the police station in Egaleo.

New Democracy preemptively attacks SYRIZA

Meanwhile, New Democracy has issued an aggressive press statement, accusing the opposition of being “extreme” and “provocative”. New Democracy further accuses SYRIZA of “perpetually and unrepentantly supporting all forms of extreme behavior” and claimed that Alexis Tsipras will be responsible for “anything that SYRIZA attempts in Athens”.

Earlier, SYRIZA’s youth party announced that “we will protest this year on the 6th of December, because the uprising remains alive in our memory, because we have even more reasons to fight and resist and because now we must win”.