Events commemorating Polytechnic uprising culminate Tues.

    Events commemorating the 36th anniversary of the Nov. 17, 1973 students' uprising at the Athens Polytechnic, which contributed to the collapse of the seven-year military dictatorship in Greece (1967-74), culminate on Tuesday.

    A three-day commemoration is held each year in tribute to the uprising against the military dictatorship ruling Greece at that time, which was violently put down in the early hours of November 17, 1973 when the army and tanks were brought in to disperse students that had taken over the Athens Polytechnic building.

    President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias and Parliament President Filippos Petsalnikos on Tuesday laid wreaths at the Polytechnic monument commemorating the uprising and those who died, while Prime Minister George Papandreou. Main opposition New Democracy (ND) former education deputy minister Spyros Taliadouros laid wreaths at the monument on Monday, while Communist Party of Greece (KKE) leader Aleka Papariga laid a wreath on Sunday.

    In a message marking the 36th anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising, Papoulias stressed that it was for all Greeks "a reference point, a reason for collective self-respect and conviction that light can emerge from darkness."

    "Those who had stood up against the junta of 1967-1974 constituted models for behaviour, life stance, and a code of values," Papoulias said.

    "In reality, they do not belong to those that cause them but to those in whose name they take place. And they are almost always expressions of revolt and demands by a younger generation that always leads the way in major reversals," the president stated.

   

   

    Caption: A woman lays a flower at the monument in the main courtyard of the Polytechnic in Athens on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009. ANA-MPA / O. PANAGIOTOU

   

   

   

   

Λεπτομέρειες στη συνδρομητική σελίδα του ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ | Αίτηση Συνδρομητή