Article from: The Australian

ANARCHIST protests have spread beyond Greece, with mobs causing violent scenes in Italy, Spain, Russia, Denmark and Turkey.

Greek diplomatic missions were vandalised in the attacks yesterday, while police, local authorities and the media were targeted in what appeared a co-ordinated escalation.

The surge took place as protests continued in Greece following the alleged police killing last Saturday of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, 15.

Mobs pelted 20 police stations with rocks and bottles, overturned cars and blocked streets in central Athens. Police responded with teargas as sporadic violence persisted amid Greece's worst rioting in decades.

Four people were detained and at least one man was treated in hospital, authorities said. In a gesture apparently designed to ease the violence, MPs held a minute of silence for the dead boy.

A clash at Korydallos prison in a western Athens suburb blew up after protesters threw rocks and other missiles at police who fired teargas to force the protesters back. Demonstrators later staged a sitdown protest in front of the prison amid more confrontations with security forces.

More than 100 schools and 15 university campuses remain occupied by youth demonstrators in Athens and the second city of Thessaloniki, with student groups announcing another rally for Friday.

Slogans such as "state killers", "murderers, you will pay", "democracy gives arms, cops assassinate" and "Silence only shows complicity" are splashed across banners hanging outside the Athens Polytechnic.

The protests over the teen's death have been hijacked by mobs of self-styled anarchists, and yesterday they spread out of Greece for the first time, authorities said.

In Denmark, 32 people were arrested in Copenhagen after protests turned violent while, in Madrid and Barcelona, several police officers were injured and 11 people were arrested following clashes.

The violence spread to Turkey, where a dozen protesters hurled red paint at the Greek flag on the door of the Greek consulate in Istanbul.

In Moscow and Rome, petrol bombs were reportedly aimed at Greek embassies.

A crew of television journalists from Russia were attacked by 50 youths as they filmed clashes in Exarchia, Greece, a hotbed of student radicalism. One correspondent was injured.

Hundreds of stores throughout Greece have been damaged or destroyed as gangs of masked youths and self-styled anarchists smashed windows with metal bars, looted stores and set up flaming street barricades in cities.

Greece's conservative Government has come under intense criticism for its handling of the crisis, despite authorities' insistence that they avoided heavy-handed policing to prevent bloodshed.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose Government has a single-seat majority in parliament, has ignored opposition calls for early elections.

However, he has promised shopkeepers affected by riots handouts of E10,000 ($20,000).