ATHENS – Defying the new New Democracy government’s mission to corral them, the notorious Rouvikonas anarchist group stormed into the political office of Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias and harassed his staff, leading him to respond they are cowardly and he won’t be cowed.
He went on Twitter to write: “To the Rouvikonas COWARDS who barged into my office and intimidated, threatened and bullied the staff: I WILL NOT BE TERRORIZED,” adding a photograph of a paint-splashed door and one of the flyers the troublemakers threw in the office, reading: “Keep your hands off public health.”
There was no explanation what that meant and the attack came after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saying he would end lawlessness and violence in the Exarchia neighborhood dominated by the gang, had sent in squadrons of police to go after drug dealers and empty abandoned buildings of squatters, with no organized response from the group.
Apart from scattering flyers, the Rouvikonas members – three men and a woman – also splashed paint and caused other damage to the office while police arrested a 23-year-old man over the incident but there’s been no reports of any prosecutions of others held after similar incursions at a number of targets in Athens.
Rouvikonas members ran into the Labor Ministry on Oct. 9 and scattered fliers with police detaining six.
They were protesting changes to labor laws passed by the new Conservative government that makes it easier for companies to fire workers without giving notification. Previously, members who had been caught in their frequent assaults were not prosecuted.
While that was going on, the group said it would launch an official website without any report on whether the Greek police who probe the wrongful use of cyber space would be tracking them to find the IP address and their location.