“The country has a government that has completely lost control of the pandemic and all it knows how to do is to beat people,” main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance’s leader Alexis Tsipras said in a post on Facebook late on Sunday.

“The unprovoked attack by police on families and young children in Nea Smyrni Square this afternoon, is the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Beatings at noon and authoritarianism and propaganda at night,” said the main opposition leader, describing Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as “the orchestrator of the largest authoritarianism and deception campaign the country has seen in decades.”

Government trying to get the country out of the crisis with the fewest possible losses, Peloni says

“Greece has a government that is trying, with the support of the people, to get the country out of an unprecedented health crisis with the fewest possible losses,” government spokesperson Aristotelia Peloni said in a statement in response to main opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras’ post.

She pointed out: “Unfortunately, there is an opposition that invests in intensity and the aggravation of the political and social climate. Mr. Tsipras did it with Dimitris Koufodinas. He is doing the same with the events in Nea Smyrni Square – which are already being investigated.”

Citizens clashed with police forces on Sunday in the Athens suburb of Nea Smyrni when a team of police officers went to the square to perform checks on the application of measures to prevent and limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Earlier Greek police clashed with more than 500 protesters in an Athens suburb , using tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the crowd.

The crowd was protesting police violence, but views of what happened earlier Sunday diverge widely.

In an announcement, police say that a motorcycle patrol went to suburb Nea Smyrni’s main square just before 3 p.m. Sunday to investigate “multiple reports” of violations of lockdown measures and that they were set upon by a group of 30 people who injured two police officers. Police reinforcement detained 11 from among the group, police say.

But videos uploaded on several websites show a different picture: peaceful citizens arguing with police and suddenly being thrown to the ground and attacked with batons. It was to this incident that the protest rally was held about four hours later.

Police say that an administrative inquiry will be held in response to the video uploads.

With the number of new cases of the coronavirus still well above 1,000 daily, the Athens area as well as others across Greece are under a strict lockdown and police patrols conduct checks to see if people are keeping social distancing and refrain from traveling unnecessarily.