Skip to main content

Rage in Greece as second anniversary of train disaster prompts mass protests

Two years to the day since 57 people died and dozens were injured in Greece’s worst train crash in history, hundreds of thousands of protesters filled plazas around the country and a general strike paralysed the transport network in an outpouring of anger over the government’s handling of the tragedy.

By 11am on Friday, more than 100,000 people had already gathered in Syntagma Square in Athens. Thousands who could not get to the area due to packed metro trains instead vented their anger outside stations in the capital’s suburbs.
 
The huge crowds in Athens and elsewhere reflected multiple opinion polls indicating that most Greeks believed officials concealed vital evidence after the crash, slowing down an investigation that is still incomplete.
 
[...]
 
On the night of 28 February 2023 two trains collided in the gorge of Tempe in central Greece: an intercity Thessaloniki-bound passenger train that had set off from Athens crammed with students, and a freight train that was moving north to south. The head-on collision was of such ferocity that the front carriages of the two locomotives exploded into a fireball that instantly incinerated several of the victims. The remains of many were never found.
 
Questions over what the cargo train was carrying has fuelled much of the public outrage. This week, a 178-page report, released by an independent investigative committee, did not exclude its wagons containing highly flammable chemicals, citing “the possible presence” of an “unknown fuel” at the site of the crash.

The relatives of the victims, who have spent two years trying to get to the bottom of the tragedy, have for many become potent symbols of the public desire for transparency and demand for answers.
 
Poll after poll has agreed: with a trial yet to begin and no government official ever convicted, Greeks have lost trust in public institutions and their judicial system. “That’s why today’s were the biggest protests this country has witnessed since the collapse in 1974 of the military dictatorship,” said Petros Constantinou, a prominent figure in the leftwing activist movement who had spent days marshalling support for the rallies.

Not since he first won office in July 2019 has the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a former banker, confronted such unrest.

Anger over the response to the crash – not least the controversial decision to rapidly clean up the site and remove debris that included vital evidence and human remains – has been exacerbated by the perceived and growing sense of a government cover-up. Within days of the crash, in a move that has yet to be fully explained, authorities rushed to gravel over and cement the area.
 
[...]
 
Among those who took to the streets on Friday were a sizeable cohort of once fervent Mitsotakis supporters. They, too, are now united with opponents of the ruling New Democracy party in believing that the tragedy – and its fallout – is indicative of everything that is wrong with their country. “A lot of us are very disappointed. Tempe is just the tip of the iceberg,” said one veteran conservative who had once held a public position and preferred to go unnamed.

Addressing the crowd from a podium in front of the Greek parliament, Maria Karystianou, whose daughter was killed in the disaster, and who heads the Tempe Victims Association, struck a chord that he and so many others believe.

“Every day, the monster of corrupt power stands before us,” she said. “You have insulted and dishonoured our dead. The bodies and bones of our children remain unburied and hidden. You have committed the ultimate sacrilege, and you will receive what is due through the vengeance of the dead.”
 
Full report:
 
 
Related:
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Trump's tariffs: A unique opportunity for BRICS and the Global South to fully escape from dollar tyranny

globinfo freexchange   Does Trump know what he is doing? Well, yes and no. While many interpretate his latest move, mostly as an attempt to halt China, his main goal is to give the final blow to the neoliberal order on behalf of his oligarchs .  From this perspective, Trump's unprecedented decision to decide mass tariffs against almost everyone, was an act of strategic hit against the global free market neoliberalism, with the financial capital  at its top. And that's because this dominant-for-almost-half-century system, identifies restrictions and protectionism as major threats against its own existence. In other words, Trump acted as a commander of the capitalist faction that wants to beat its neoliberal rivals and put itself in charge, through a new transformation of capitalism into a 21st century corporate feudalism.   Concerning China, Trump's move may have some negative impact on its economy for a while, since China has chosen to partially play by the rule...

Deranged euroclowns want to revive a nazi-origin project!

globinfo freexchange   Behind the ridiculously cartoonish latest spot of the EU that gives "instructions" to the European citizens on how to deal with a major crisis during the first hours, lies a secret desire.    The deranged euroclowns of the crypto-fascist extreme center , are trying to build up a condition of consent inside the minds of Europeans, which is related to their biggest wet dream: an autonomous imperialist European army. The idea was not born suddenly because of Trump's hostile attitude against his own allies. From the early 50s, pan-European networks of neo-Nazis were created. In May 1951, the European Social Movement (MSE) was founded in Malmö, Sweden. Essentially, it was about projecting the ideology of the German SRP on a pan-European level. The MSE, which would remain active until the 1980s, proclaimed the need for Europe to emancipate itself from the divisive tutelage of the USA and the USSR, called for the defense of the “European race” against th...

Netanyahu BRAGS About Genocide - And Our Media COVERS IT UP

Owen Jones  

Google Imports Ex Israeli Spies, The Genocide Resumes, Cruel Britannia

by Nate Bear   Part 2 - The genocide resumes   The day before the Wiz deal, Israel resumed its genocide of Gaza with an unhinged bloodthirsty rampage, the deadliest twenty-four hours in the last nearly eighteen months of genocide. A high bar had been set, and it was cleared. They attacked at night, itself an act of utter cowardice and sadism, and slaughtered hundreds as they slept in tents. In tents. Close to one hundred babies and young children were killed. The overall death toll exceeds 400 and is rising. As expected, there is not a flicker of condemnation from world leaders, many of whom are arming Israel with the weapons and intelligence it needs for genocide. The British air force spent the ceasefire period gathering intelligence on Palestinians and feeding it to Israel so they could restart the mass murder efficiently.  The genocide is the end of the west. It destroys any claim to moral superiority over Russia, China, Iran or any of the officially designated bad g...

Exporting Genocide: Gaza Burns as Repression Comes Home

BreakThrough News   Rania Khalek hosts a special live episode of Dispatches with Ali Abunimah, executive director of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine . They dive into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the global silence enabling it, and why this brutal new phase was always Zionism’s endgame. From U.S.-funded fascism abroad to rising repression at home, nothing is off the table.  

Professor at Center of Columbia University Deportation Scandal is Former Israeli Spy

The professor at the center of the Columbia University deportation scandal is a former Israeli intelligence official, MintPress News can reveal. Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the university’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), was abducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday for his role in organizing protests last year against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Khalil’s dean, Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.   by Alan Macleod   Part 4 - Defending Israel, Destroying Free Speech Longtime readers of MintPress News will be less surprised than many to ...

April 1st 1957: the day Western mainstream media officially became masters of propaganda through a seemingly innocent April Fools' Day joke

globinfo freexchange  In 1957, BBC conducted a very interesting experiment. The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools' Day 1957 by the BBC current-affairs programme Panorama , purportedly showing a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family "spaghetti tree". At the time spaghetti was relatively little known in the UK, so that many Britons were unaware that it is made from wheat flour and water; a number of viewers afterwards contacted the BBC for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees. Decades later, CNN called this broadcast " the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled ". This "innocent" farce showed dramatically the unimaginable power of TV and the mainstream media to shape massively the minds of millions. Earlier, Freud's young nephew, Edward Bernays, had set the foundations of modern propaganda. It is worth to add that the te...

Will the Trump Shock prove as momentous as the Nixon Shock?

Yanis Varoufakis  

Israeli Newspaper PROVES Netayanhu Planned Genocide

Owen Jones