On April 21, 1967, the parliamentary constitution was abolished by a group of officers under the leadership of colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. The conspirators took advantage of the demerit of political institutions, the disorganization in the political field, the given circumstances and the inertia of the throne. The military junta aimed at consolidating its power and therefore it attempted to eliminate, often through the use of violence, any form of contestation. To achieve that, since the first day of the coup, organized plans of persecution were implemented against almost all political personalities, leftists, as well as against citizens who were known for their liberal and democratic action.

Members of the army and public sector (education, public administration, justice) were removed, in order to achieve the desired conformity to the ideological medley that the dictators called ‘the regime principles’. The treatment of those who were considered political opponents of the regime involved imprisonment, banishment to barren islands, but also tortures that could physically obliterate democratic citizens.

A series of successive ‘governmental’ formations that were created short after the coup, could not conceal the real structure of authority that G. Papadopoulos and his close collaborators represented. Despite the censorship and the prohibition to call into question the colonels, various mobilizations took place in the country. Furthermore, strong protests in western European countries by exiled democratic citizens, gave rise to an international reaction movement against the junta, which culminated in its expulsion from the Council of Europe (1969).