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Athens erupts in violence after acid attack on immigrant
By Nick Squires
Last Updated: 4:41PM GMT 23 Jan 2009
olice in Greece clashed with gangs of youths throwing petrol bombs and stones on Thursday night, a month on from the country's worst civil unrest in decades.
Police officers in central Athens fired tear gas to dispel the rioters, who peeled off from a protest which had been organised in solidarity with a Bulgarian migrant worker who was attacked with acid last month.
Kostadinka Kuneva, 44, a Bulgarian cleaning lady and a union official, is in hospital in a serious condition after the Dec 22 attack by two unidentified men who ambushed her outside her home and threw acid in her face.
The march to the Labour Ministry, which involved about 3,000 demonstrators, had started out peacefully.
Demonstrators carried banners reading "Kostandinka, you're not alone," and "Stop violence against immigrants".
But violence flared when a group of around 30 self-declared anarchists and left-wing activists set rubbish bins alight and smashed paving stones for ammunition to throw at police.
Greece was hit by days of demonstrations and riots in December after a police officer shot dead a teenage schoolboy in the volatile Exarchia district of Athens.
Thousands of protesters, many of them school pupils and students, took to the streets to protest against police brutality, poor job prospects, low wages and government corruption.
Meanwhile thousands of farmers blocked border crossings and main roads on Friday in a fifth day of protests to demand compensation for a drop in agricultural prices.
Farmers used tractors to shut border crossings into Bulgaria, Macedonia and Turkey, a day after rejecting a 500-million-euro package from the government.
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