[...] But at the end of the day money is money, in Greece however the copyright enforcement campaign may have claimed a life on August 18th. I missed the news at the time, so cheers to jaromil for bringing it to my attention. Tony Onouha was a 27 year old Nigerian immigrant who sold DVDs and CDs on the street in Thessaloniki. Details as to what happened are contested. While selling CDs in an internet cafe he encountered two men, allegedly plain cloths police who had beaten him previously for selling CDs. He was chased into another building and then fell or jumped out a first floor window to his death. Police deny that they had any officers in the area at the time, and say they are searching for the two individuals. Operations against bootleggers are commonplace in Greece. The incident provoked four days of clashes between the police and local nigerians and greeks outraged at his death. More detailed information is available here. [...]

I actually haven’t seen the same scattering and chasing here that I used to see all the time in Athens. But maybe I don’t pass through the areas of Thessaloniki that are usually targeted.

Sorry, he didn’t get shot, he fell off a balcony. I missed that. We did recently have a young robber who had broken into an apartment who fell off a highrise balcony when the police entered the apartment. Not much sympathy for the bad guy here though…ciao

I saw the riots on last nights news, it is very sad. They are cracking down here in Canada on bootlegged items but fortunately the police don’t shoot. It is said the the money from bootlegged stuff goes to terrorism, is this true, I don’t know. The way to stop it of course is for no one to buy it, but everyone wants a deal or something cheap…ciao