On May 5 and 6, 2010 Greece witnessed extensive protests including a forty-eight-hour nationwide strike and demonstrations in major cities. Protests were provoked by the passing of three austerity measures by the Greek parliament in February 2010, in March 2010, and finally in May 2010. The measures were part of the conditions for the €110 billion first EU bailout, acquired in order to solve the Greek government debt crisis. These events ended with clashes between the police and anti-austerity protesters, during which the police made widespread use of tear-gas and flash bombs, and made multiple arrests. Three people died when some individuals set fire to a bank branch with Molotov cocktails, and tens of people were injured. One year later, the police once again made use of violence against protesters at the May 11 demonstrations. This was a few days before the Greek Indignant Citizens Movement on May 25, 2011 started to protest in major cities across Greece. In June 2011, in concomitance with the government discussions on the midterm adjustment program and additional austerity measures (the adjustment program was later passed on June 29, 2011), police clashed with demonstrators numerous times – again, making excessive use of tear-gas.

On 24 May 2011, in the middle of the parliamentary debate on the so-called mid-term adjustment plan, yet another round of austerity imposed by Greece’s international creditors, a call for a demonstration at Syntagma Square in Athens and at the White Tower in Thessaloniki appeared on Facebook. By the next day at least 20,000 people assembled in the two squares, mostly chanting “thieves, thieves” at parliamentarians and cursing the Parliament. The movement of the Greek Indignados or Aganaktismenoi was born. It would prove to be massive, expansive, and innovative. Immediately after the initial demonstrations, the main squares in the two cities were occupied, and simultaneous protests began in almost all major urban centers of the country. Interest would focus on Syntagma Square, however, where the occupation was symbolically confronting Parliament, juxtaposing the public assembly and the symbolic seat of political power. In the following days, the occupation grew exponentially, eventually reaching almost 400,000 participants on June 5th. In our dataset, there is an event associated with the Aganaktismenoi on almost every single day until the end of the episode on June 30th.