Policing has long been a major political flash point in Greece: right-wingers demand harsh “law and order” measures, while the Left denounces a repressive force riddled with fascists. Calls for reform have been particularly strong over the last month following a string of high-profile clashes. Yet with the creation of new special units, including in the country’s universities, it is the partisans of extended police powers who are setting the agenda.

The most recent spate of incidents began on March 7, when a young man was arrested after he failed to follow police instructions to leave a square in Athens’s Nea Smyrni neighborhood. He was beaten by a baton-wielding member of the DIAS motorcycle squad, and footage of the violence soon went viral — forcing the suspension of the officer at the center of the row.

On March 9, there were protests — in turn violently suppressed by members of another police motorcycle squad, DRASI (Action). Officers drove right through the protesters, indiscriminately lobbing flash-bang grenades. A group of football hooligans involved in the gathering managed to wrestle one police officer from the back of a motorcycle, who was then beaten by the angry crowd. The incident was again captured on video, as were other instances of DRASI teams driving over protesters. The government blamed the violence on anarchist and leftist “agitators,” which it linked to opposition party Syriza.