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Greeks gather in pro-gov't rallies during Eurogroup meeting

Xinhua, February 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Thousands of Greeks took to the streets here and other major cities on Wednesday in rallies in support of the new left-led government while Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was participating in a Eurogroup meeting in Brussels on the Greek debt crisis.

In the second pro-government mobilization in a week, which was organized through social media, citizens gathered outside the parliament building in the Greek capital and central squares across Greece to send a message that the "country will not be blackmailed by creditors."

That was the main slogan of protesters on Syntagma square. "We don't get blackmailed. We don't surrender. We're not afraid. We don't step back. We will win," the call on social media said.

"All we are saying is giving Greece a chance," protesters were chanting on Wednesday.

Approximately 15,000 people braved the cold and joined the demonstration in central Athens, according to police estimates.

A week ago about 7,000 people protested against the European Central Bank's decision to restrict the eligibility of Greek state bonds used as collateral for liquidity of Greek banks starting from Feb. 11, since the new government denied the completion of the four-year bailout program which expires on Feb. 28.

The radical left SYRIZA-led administration which took over after the Jan. 25 elections insists on a renegotiation of the terms of the debt deal with lenders to make the debt load sustainable.

Creditors were dismissing several requests of Athens' ahead of Wednesday's talks, fuelling scenarios of an impending clash and Grexit.

Costas Poulis, one of the organizers of the rally, explained that the main target was to "remind to officials in Brussels that beyond numbers and statistics, there are people in flesh who must be heard."

"Decision makers need to respect our message against austerity and the bailout, in favor of democracy," he stressed.

Not all Greeks however hailed the rare in Greece pro-government protests. "Such pro-government rallies are staged only in Third World and totalitarian regimes," financial analyst Costas Stoupas noted, adding that in democracies people usually take to the streets to protest government policies. Endit