Every year on 17 November a demonstration for the Athens Polytechnic Uprising and in memory of the demonstrators killed during the uprising, takes place in
Athens and other major Greek cities. In 1980, with Greece being about to rejoin
NATO military exercises and with negotiations regarding American military camps in Greece going on, the government of
Georgios Rallis and the
police did not allow the march to pass as usually in front of the American embassy (the USA government had supported the military dictatorship). The parliamentary left, consisting of
KKE and
PASOK, accepted the restriction changing the usual route and following a course to the
Syntagma square where at about 19:30 it was dissolved. However, some organizations, mostly of the far-left, refused to accept the restrictions at about 21:00 about 2000-3000 demonstrators moved towards
Vasilissis Sofias Avenue in order to reach the American Embassy. After a few minutes of quarrels the demonstrators passed through the first line of regular police. Behind this line there were several units of riot police that attacked the protestors. During the clashes that followed, the police used, for the first time after the
dictatorship, guns and vehicles with mounted water canons against the protestors. During these clashes two protestors were killed: Stamatina Kanellopoulou, a worker aged 20, was brutally beaten and transferred to the Ippokrateio Hospital where she died before she was provided first aid. The forensic doctor's findings report 18 hits at the head, multiple fractures and severe head injury. Iakovos Koumis, a Cypriot student aged 26, took part in the march and was beaten in Syntagma square while sitting at a nearby coffee shop. About 150 more protesters were injured. == Reactions of politicians ==