Thousands Protest in Greece against Canadian goldmine project 15th April

Thou­sands of Greek pro­test­ers on Sat­ur­day ral­lied against a Cana­di­an gold min­ing project under way in the north­east­ern region of Halkidi­ki, which locals say will cause irre­versible dam­age to the envi­ron­ment.

About 2,000 peo­ple took part in the march in Athens and anoth­er 1,500 in Greece’s sec­ond-largest city Thes­sa­loni­ki, accord­ing to AFP jour­nal­ists.

Car­ry­ing ban­ners against the project run by Hel­lenic Gold, a sub­sidiary of Cana­di­an firm Eldo­ra­do Gold, the demon­stra­tors chant­ed: “We want forests, land and water, not a grave made out of gold.”

“Fields full of cyanide and arsenic, that is what remains from gold” was anoth­er slo­gan.

They also called for the release of two peo­ple who were arrest­ed ear­li­er this week in con­nec­tion with a sab­o­tage attack car­ried out on the min­ing work­site two months ago.

Cit­i­zens’ groups have been try­ing to halt the project since 2011, when the Greek gov­ern­ment gave Hel­lenic Gold per­mis­sion to dig in the region.

While the invest­ment is expect­ed to cre­ate hun­dreds of jobs in the reces­sion-hit coun­try — where the unem­ploy­ment rate has topped 27 per­cent — oppo­nents say it will drain and con­t­a­m­i­nate local water reserves and fill the air with haz­ardous chem­i­cals includ­ing lead, cad­mi­um, arsenic and mer­cury.

Fre­quent march­es have tak­en place in recent months, with pro­test­ers enjoy­ing the back­ing of main oppo­si­tion rad­i­cal left­ist par­ty Syriza, the sec­ond-largest in par­lia­ment.

In the Feb­ru­ary attack, dozens of hood­ed activists fire­bombed Hel­lenic Gold’s work­site, injur­ing a guard and dam­ag­ing equip­ment.

Ear­li­er this week, angry locals trashed the police sta­tion of the near­by Ieris­sos vil­lage over claims that offi­cers had used exces­sive force in the pre-dawn arrest of the pair sus­pect­ed to be linked to the sab­o­tage attack.

Pub­lic Order Min­is­ter Nikos Den­dias accused the local com­mu­ni­ty of Ieris­sos of want­i­ng “to impose its own law and oper­ate like a Gaul­ish vil­lage,” in a ref­er­ence to the Aster­ix com­ic books.

Despite the oppo­si­tion, the Cana­di­an firm announced ear­li­er this month that it intends to remain in Greece and cre­ate thou­sands of jobs over the next two years.

Halkidi­ki, a pic­turesque and forest­ed penin­su­la, is a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for tourists, espe­cial­ly from Rus­sia and the neigh­bour­ing Balkan states.