Concerns mount of police being targeted after reports of harassment

The head of one of the unions representing members of the Hellenic Police (ELAS) has voiced concerns that officers are being targeted by “bounty hunters,” according to a social media post on Monday morning.

In a post on Facebook, Vassilis Doumas, the president of the union representing ELAS’ special guards, reported numerous complaints from civilians claiming to have been stopped on the street on Monday night by unidentified individuals in the eastern Athenian suburbs of Zografou and Vyronas.

According to Doumas, passersby and motorists were asked to report their names and professional capacity and also to display their identification papers by groups of people they identified as self-styled anarchists. 

“They were out looking for police officers in civilian dress… like bounty hunters,” the unionist claimed.

The area in Zografou where the “roadblocks” allegedly took place is near ELAS’ Attica Operations Department and a police precinct. It is also near a sprawling university campus, outside of which a police patrol car was firebombed in the early hours of Monday by unknown assailants. No one was injured in the attack. 

On Sunday afternoon, meanwhile, the police precinct of nearby Kaisariani was also pelted with Molotov cocktails and rocks by around 20 hooded assailants, who damaged two motorcycles parked in the courtyard but did not cause any injuries.

Self-styled anarchists have carried out several attacks against perceived symbols of the state and state authorities in recent days in apparent retaliation for jailed terrorist Dimitris Koufodinas, who has been on hunger strike for more than 50 days in demand of a transfer to a prison near Athens.