ATHENS AND MADRID — Hooded youths attacked the Athens courthouse with firebombs Wednesday and a general strike by labor unions shut down most of the country as nationwide urban unrest entered its fifth night.
The worst riots in years, sparked by the fatal shooting by police of a 15-year-old boy Saturday, have left Greece's fragile center-right government fighting for survival. The strike by about 100,000 workers shut down most transportation as well as banks and hospitals.
The crisis has worsened with authorities' inability to stop rampages by gangs who have burned, vandalized and looted hotels, banks and stores in the historic center of the capital and in cities around the country.
Leaders of the center-left opposition Wednesday repeated their demand for early elections. They said the street violence shows that Greeks are fed up with economic woes and corruption scandals under the administration of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.
"This country is not being governed," Evangelos Venizelos, a Socialist Party leader, said in a speech in Parliament. "The government can no longer convince anyone."
In a statement, Karamanlis condemned the violence.
"The rioters, with their acts, once again demonstrated that the only thing that inspires them is the destruction," he said. "They have targeted social peace, the rule of law and democracy itself."
The shooting Saturday night was one of the recurring clashes between police and youths, mainly anarchists and extreme leftists, in a country that otherwise has a low rate of violence. The setting was the Exarchia area of Athens, a gentrifying neighborhood dominated by students and activists near the Polytechnic University.
A group of youths threw objects at a police car, then confronted two officers who got out, according to officials. A gunshot during the clash killed Alexandros Grigoropolous, a private school student and son of middle-class professionals.
One officer has been charged with murder and the other as an accessory to murder.
But a hearing at the heavily guarded courthouse Wednesday appeared to support assertions by the defense that the first officer had fired only a warning shot. Forensic tests have determined that the teenager was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off a wall, rather than one fired directly at the youths, according to public statements by a defense lawyer and government officials.
The officers were jailed pending trial.
