Protesters in Greece Clash with Police Over Gold Mine, Again

Riot police show up to pro­tect min­ing inter­est

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers have bat­tled riot police for hours over plans for a gold mine in north­ern Greece’s Halkidi­ki penin­su­la.

Police fired tear gas to fend off pro­test­ers who had gath­ered in the Skouries area of Halkidi­ki, north­ern Greece, on Sun­day to protest gold min­ing activ­i­ty.

Dozens of res­i­dents of the near­by vil­lage of Ieris­sos, as well as pro­test­ers who arrived by coach­es and cars from Thes­sa­loni­ki, approached the for­est in Skouries, where Hel­lenic Gold, a sub­sidiary of Cana­di­an firm Eldo­ra­do Gold, has begun min­ing activ­i­ty that locals are appeal­ing against.

Pro­test­ers accused the police of mak­ing heavy use of tear gas, caus­ing a fire in the woods, and of chop­ping down trees to pre­vent demon­stra­tors from approach­ing the mine. Police say pro­test­ers threw fire­bombs at them, set­ting ablaze a forest­ed area on the site. Either way, the fire has been put out.

There were reports of sev­er­al peo­ple being arrest­ed and detained at Ieris­sos police sta­tion. Sev­er­al peo­ple were also injured, includ­ing SYRIZA MP Van­ge­lis Dia­man­topou­los.

Hel­lenic Gold has been award­ed an area of 26,400 hectares, of which 410 is for­est land. Almost all the trees in the for­est will be cut down as part of the min­ing firm’s plan to extract gold. The com­pa­ny says it will replant trees when it fin­ish­es its work.

Envi­ron­men­tal oppo­nents of the mine argue it would lead to the destruc­tion of the local for­est and irre­versible dam­age to the ecosys­tem. Own­ers of local tourist lodg­ing are also fierce­ly opposed due to envi­ron­men­tal rea­sons.

This is not the first clash over the gold mine. Oppo­nents suc­ceed­ed a decade ago in can­cel­ing a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar gold min­ing project in a near­by area.      Source

The film below, Trea­sure Hunt, doc­u­ments that strug­gle. This is the first 10 min­utes of the film:

 

The entire doc­u­men­tary with sub­ti­tles can be found online by click­ing this link.