Giorgos Avgeropoulos is a seasoned foreign correspondent whose 'Exandas' series of world documentaries (covering everything from Oaxaca protests to Greenland ice melts) are one of the few positively great things one can still see on Greek TV. He has had a few rather violent experiences with police forces and repression around the world. Yet he claims that yesterday's violence was uniquely brutal and deadly. (The translation leaves much to be desired but the testimony and the questions are worth the extra effort)

Flirting with death:

I have covered conflicts of protestors and police in various places around the world outside Greece, such as in Argentina, Italy, Bolivia, and Mexico. Especially in Mexico the police, as many know, are considered savage, untrained and corrupt. However, what I lived through and recorded along with my co-workers yesterday Wednesday 29/6 at Syntagma, surpasses all limits in savagery. The Greek police rightly, and by a wide margin, gets the prize for barbarity. A barbarity which has no relation to repression but which was a constant flirt with death.

It is a miracle that we did not mourn any dead. And Mr. Papoutsis [the Minister of "Citizen Protection"] should light a candle to the God he believes in, since it is only due to his good luck that he is not apologising today for any dead.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake