Public Order Minister Yiannis Panousis not only hasn’t back down from his high-profile “open letter” last week, where he decried what he called a “Left of Nothing”, but on Monday asked “what do you call a Left that takes up firebombs and heads for war?”

Panousis’ article, published in the mass daily “Ta Nea” on Friday, generated a cascade of reaction, both positive and negative, with most of the latter coming from his own party, the ruling Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA).

He made the statement on Monday on the sidelines of an event to sign an agreement on civil defence with Attica prefecture regional governor Rena Dourou, herself a high-profile SYRIZA cadre.

On the non-political front, Panousis, a professor of criminology, said citizens will be given the opportunity to meet with police precinct commanders during specific hours, while also unveiled a measure to dispatch special anti-crime vans to areas of high crime activity, without going into further details.

In a comments aimed more towards his own government, Panousis also called for “boundaries to be set” in dealing with so-called “occupations” – usually conducted by self-styled anarchists and “anti-state” in public buildings, spaces, universities or abandoned structures.

Moreover, he called on the academic community to take a clear stance on the issue.

“I asked from rectors (to utilize) the Diamantopoulos law, which foresees security measures. One university told me that they are not taking measures because this would cause tension,” he said, adding that university officials and police must have open avenues of communication.

Turning to another “burning issue” on the domestic front — the back-and-forth violence between opponents and proponents, mostly the employees, of a gold mining operation in Skouries, northern Greece – Panousis warned that violence will lead to fatalities at this rate, while the entire issue was political.