November 18, 2020

H.E. ANTONIS ALEXANDRIDIS
Ambassador-Designate / Head of Mission
EMBASSY OF THE HELLENIC REPUBLIC
Unit 701, SEDCCO-1 Building
120 Rada Street, Legazpi Village
Makati City, Metro Manila 1229
E-mail: gremb.man@mfa.gr

Dear Ambassador-Designate Alexandridis :

The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930, the Philippine Communist Party) is shocked to learn that yesterday's commemoration of the 47th anniversary of the student uprising at the Polytechnic University in Athens in November 1973, with the traditional annual march and rally at the US embassy in Athens, was brutally suppressed. While the rally led by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) was in front of the US embassy in the center of Athens, in an organized way and observing all health protection protocols, the police unleashed an unprovoked attack with batons, tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades. The police did not even hesitate to attack KKE Members of Parliament, while also injuring many rallyists and proceeding to arrest dozens.

It is notable that what was being commemorated yesterday was the bold student uprising at the Polytechnic University in Athens in November 1973, which was one of the decisive events that led to the overthrow of the US-propped military junta that brutally ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. Considering the recent positive development in Greece with the judicial declaration of the neo-fascist “Golden Dawn” party as an illegal and criminal organization --- a signal development which would have repercussions in other EU states where neo-fascist parties also exist –- the world was expecting a more liberal approach by the Greek government towards anti-fascist and anti-imperialist manifestations.

However, yesterday's barbaric repressive action was unprecedented. This year's escalation of authoritarianism and repression by the Greek government's ruling right-wing “New Democracy” party is directly to blame for yesterday's unprovoked and barbaric attack on the peaceful demonstrators. The decision of police minister Michalis Chrysochoidis to ban yesterday's march and rally, despite the statement of the Union of Judges and Prosecutors characterizing this decision unconstitutional and calling on the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to quash it, was truly provocative and blood-thirsty, and was denounced by the broad political spectrum in your country.

In the same way that the November 1973 student uprising had the popular support of the workers and people of Athens, the yearly mass anti-imperialist marches every November 17 show the popular support by the people of Greece. The demands of the 1973 Polytechnic Uprising --- “USA out – NATO out”, and “Bread-Education-Freedom” –- are just as relevant in Greece today, as the Greek people struggles against your country's involvement in US-NATO imperialist war plans, and as they demand for rights to work, education, health, and individual and trade union freedoms.

We therefore call on you to bring to the attention of your government our strong condemnation of yesterday's unprovoked and barbaric attack by the police on the KKE rally in Athens, as well as our demand for the immediate release of all those arrested.

Sincerely yours,

ATTY. ANTONIO E. PARIS
General Secretary