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A couple runs to escape a fire from a bus station booth during riots in Athens December 7, 2008. Riots raged in several cities after police shot dead a teenage boy in the Greek capital, in the Mediterranean nation's worst civil disturbances in years. [Agencies]
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Police said 24 policemen were injured in Athens in overnight riots that started Saturday, and another 13 on Sunday, while seven people were arrested and another 15 were detained.
As night fell, groups of youths, some masked and others wearing motorcycle helmets, set trash cans alight and overturned cars to erect burning barricades on streets around the Athens Polytechnic -- which, like all universities, is protected by law from police intrusion. Some could be seen walking on the roof of the Polytechnic, taunting police.
Violence in the capital began to die down late Sunday, after several hours of running battles between police and rioters. In Thessaloniki, a large fire could be seen burning at the city's university.
A blurry video shot by a bystander that purportedly shows the shooting Saturday has been aired on Greek television and posted on the Internet. Two sounds that could be gunshots can be heard, but the image is too blurry and distant to show the events clearly.
Greece has seen frequent and sometimes violent demonstrations recently against the conservative government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. The opposition Socialists are now consistently ahead in opinion polls.
