February 28, 2025: When Greeks Shaped Modern National History
Dear Member,
This is our weekly round-up from Greece.
On 28 February, two years after the tragic rail collision in which 57 people lost their lives, citizens flooded streets and squares all over the country and abroad to demand justice for Tempi. GSEE and ADEDY umbrella unions and the Athens Labour Center declared a nationwide strike, joined by healthcare workers, educators, seafarers, public transport employees, cultural sector workers, etc.
The whole country practically shut down.
Overall, gatherings were scheduled in 365 cities in Greece and abroad, with high participation rates.
Some 700,000 to 1,000,000 are estimated to have rallied in Athens only, making this a protest comparable only to some monumental historic moments of the country - after the fall of Junta in 1974 and after the liberation of the city from the Nazis in 1944.
Despite the dense crowd (or because of it), which included children and elderly, the police threw tear-gas and flash grenades. Yet, they did not manage to bend the spirit.
This was huge. HUGE.
I was on Syntagma Square.
I have been participating in rallies for 30 years. I’ve been in all major and many smaller protests. I have also been a journalist for more than 20 years. I cannot recall a rally in Athens similar to the 28th February one in size. Not even during the squares movement in 2011. Not even on the eve of the 5th of July 2015 plebiscite, when people stood up to power and massively voted “NO” to the Memoranda. Those Memoranda that led to the austerity cuts which have now crippled the state’s infrastructure and impoverished the country and its people. Those Memoranda which ultimately led to the Tempi rail accident, as verified by the independent report we analyse in the next section.
On 28 February 2025, two years after the Tempi rail tragedy, the demonstration was so large that it could only be compared to protests in eras my generation has not lived. Older people and experts compare it to the rally after the fall of the Greek Junta in 1974, in which people chanted “Give the Junta to the People.” And to the rally of joy when people flooded the streets following the liberation of Athens from Nazi occupation in 1944.
Mainstream Mega Channel estimated the crowd to be 800,000 people (here are (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) some photos to get an idea of the size; here are (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) videos from Mega Channel drone; more photos here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), here, (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)).
Massive rallies, scheduled for 11 am (Greek time), were held in 365 cities in Greece and abroad. Thessaloniki also saw one of the largest protests in its history (here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) a video from a drone).
Shops were closed, hairdressers were closed, even big supermarket chains like AB closed for a few hours, coffee bars and taverns were closed, ‘bouzoukia’ were closed.
Taxi drivers were on a 24-hour strike, yet some 400 were on duty only to pick people up from specific spots in Athens to take them to the demonstration. You could spot them from the black balloon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) tied to their window, writing ‘I have no oxygen’.
Even prisoners sent a message (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of solidarity to the protesters, stating they know “first hand what Greek justice and a cover-up means, what justice and police acting arbitrarily means.”
These are unprecedented things. They have never happened before altogether, at least not in my lifetime.
As we mentioned, public transportation was on a 24-hour strike. Only the metro operated for a few hours to help demonstrators commute, but the police, according to their thirteen years of practice, have shut down crucial metro stations close to the city centre.
Despite everything, people reached the heart of Athens to protest. On foot, most of them. They walked, even from Athenian neighbourhoods many kilometres away from the centre. Roads turned into rivers that flooded Syntagma square. Syntagma means ‘Constitution,’ so Greeks tried to uphold it symbolically.
All of them. Women and men, older and younger. I saw people with walking sticks, people in wheelchairs, and babies in their buggies. I saw people dressed in suits, in alternative clothing, in tracksuits, on heels, with trainers.
"I am addressing the murderers of our children. You insulted and showed contempt for our dead. The remains and bones of our children lie unburied in hidden places. You have committed the greatest hubris, and you will receive what is due through the pulse of Nemesis," declared (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) Maria Karystianou, head of the Tempi Victims’ Relatives Association, speaking in Syntagma square.
She reminds me of ancient Greek tragedy heroines, fighting to uphold eternal values so often forgotten through the centuries by the people in power.
“Murderers, Murderers” people chanted.
Meanwhile, 25 members of the anarchist collective Rouvikonas had climbed on the rooftop of Hellenic Train headquarters and opened a banner (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with “Murderers” written on it. All 25 were arrested and now face charges of disturbing domestic peace.
The crowd in Athens was most dense in front and around the Parliament - that is, around Syntagma square.
This is where the police hit.
A small hooded group started smashing and breaking marbles in Syntagma. The police were just watching them do it, they let them do it. Then, they threw tear gas and flash grenades to disperse the crowd.
These hooded groups appear in most demonstrations. I have never witnessed the police stopping them or arresting them. They play a pivotal role in creating panic and ‘triggering’ police intervention. This has been a pattern for decades. Many believe these are groups infiltrated or even incited by the police. Evidence has surfaced from time to time showing cooperation at least with some of them (This video (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) from the 28th February demonstration shows riot policemen creating a wall around an arrested hooded man to hide him from sight, then they release him - he walks away). Whether these groups are incited or not, they definitely create chaos that turns against the crowd. Plus, they have never acted in solidarity with the rest of the protesters - kids, elderly, and people with mobility problems were also participating in this rally.
At the same time, police on motorcycles (the ‘DIAS’ unit), in groups of ten-twelve, were speeding through the crowds with a clear intent to intimidate people. Some even waved their truncheons against us to flaunt their power.
A total of 84 detentions and 41 arrests have been made in Athens.
The photojournalist of the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), Orestis Panagiotou, was injured (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in the head by a stun grenade thrown by the police. Veteran photo-journalist Marios Lolos -himself a victim of police violence- reported (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) that Orestis Panagiotou suffered a head injury from the stun grenade and that he was discharged from the hospital with reduced hearing after receiving stitches.
Despite the crackdown by the police, protesters kept coming back to Syntagma and surrounding streets. For quite some time, they were just sitting peacefully and chanting "Resign."
Police attacked again at 16:15 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) using a water cannon, tear gas, and flash grenades to disperse them.
At exactly 23:18, the time when the Intercity train collided with the freight train in Tempi two years ago, demonstrators at Syntagma, who were holding candles, released white balloon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)s into the sky in memory of the 57 victims of the railway disaster.
Each balloon bore the age of one of the victims.
“Immortal,” they chanted.
Why so big, why now, what next
The whole of Greece is Tempi - and potentially Tempi. In a nutshell, the accident has become a painful emblem of the country's vital infrastructure's gradual collapse following fifteen years of austerity policies and decades of corruption.
People in Greece often say that only pure lack keeps us alive. After all, it was pure luck that we were not on that train. Be it trains or other transportation means, be it collapsing obsolete hospitals and school buildings, the understaffing of vital institutions and services -and so on- citizens’ lives are at risk every minute.
Tempi, and the subsequent unprecedented cover-up attempt, was the straw that broke the camel's back.
That’s also because in this country no state or other high ranking official has ever been punished for major scandals through the decades - with a handful of exceptions verifying the rule.
In alliance with mainstream media, the government pulled out all kinds of tactics from their propaganda machine to make people refrain from the 28 February demonstration (we analysed part in our previous newsletter). They used the carrot and the stick. First, they tried to intimidate citizens by spreading rumours of violent episodes. They engaged in unprecedented newspeak, with ministers and organic intellectuals declaring in all tones that an effort to destabilise the country is underway (by protesting!) Then they patted people in the back by saying that demanding justice is legit. Then, they tried to intimidate us again.
It was the very same propaganda style used back in 2011 and 2015. It can be enshrined in the fake dilemma “Memoranda or Chaos”, “Mitsotakis or the End of the World” - “Choose the status quo or descend into the abyss.”
Well, it did not work. Instead, it worked the other way around: The more the people were subjected to this manic campaign, the more decisive they became.
After having green-lighted party officials to make provocative statements, PM Mitsotakis attempted to appear as a unifying figure with a post on social media (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on the day of the protest. In this, he referred to "human errors" and "chronic failings of the state" but failed to undertake responsibility for his government’s role. “All Greeks share the grief, united by a common demand for truth and justice,” he said. Yet he once again targeted the opposition, accusing them of "political exploitation of human suffering." Also, he indirectly reiterated the narrative that a potential fall of government would equal ‘destabilisation’ of the country: the majority of the citizens -he said- share the view that “a tragedy that has deeply hurt us should not become a tool for others to undermine national unity or derail the steady course toward a better future.”
Mitsotakis indeed united the Greeks. He united them against his government. After this historic demonstration, in which people from all across the political spectrum participated, one thing is for sure:
The New Democracy government and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis are now politically and ethically delegitimised.
So, what next?
Greece is going through an unprecedented crisis of political representation.
People are deeply disappointed both by the government and the opposition - the latter being fragmented and essentially voiceless in Parliament (in the sense they either have enforced or support similar policies or do not express a strong and persuasive opposition stance.)
At the same time, there is no social movement. A big social movement developed back in 2011, which culminated in the Squares movement. There were thousands of neighbourhood collectives, solidarity and self-organised initiatives, building a political alternative to the Memoranda.
This movement brought a 3% party -SYRIZA- to become the government.
Then, we all know what happened. SYRIZA degenerated to a TINA party and kept enforcing the austerity policies despite the fact that people had elected them exactly to avert this.
The movement then died.
So, now there is no political party that people can widely trust. There is no social movement.
There is just a political gap, a dangerous gap, a crisis of political representation.
We cannot stop thinking of the following scenario:
Mitsotakis declares elections. ND again gets a big part of the vote, not enough to become government. So, they then forge a coalition with the far-right.
However, action sometimes brings solutions we had not imagined before.
Report affirms accusations against the State as to the Tempi railway accident
Just a day before the scheduled rally for justice for Tempi, the National Organization for the Investigation of Aviation and Railway Accidents and Transport Safety (EODASAAM) published their report (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on the case, following a year-long investigation.
The report constitutes a severe indictment of the entire railway system in Greece, attributing heavy responsibilities to the Transport Ministry, successive governments, OSE (state-owned part of railway), Hellenic Train (the company operating the railway), the Regulatory Authority for Railways (RAS) and the European Union Agency for Railways. It also verifies unidentified fuel was involved in the collision.
More specifically, according to the report:
1. There are crucial liabilities for the non-implementation of Contract 717, which provided for the implementation of railway tele-administration and safety systems. Contract 717 should have been implemented by 2016 (Our comment: This holds accountable also SYRIZA and previous governments). Implementation of 717 could have prevented the tragedy. “Those who delayed enforcing Contract 717 have contributed to the killing of the kids,” EODASAAM head said (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in the press conference.
The state of the railway at the night of the accident was the result of two factors: a) The Greek state’s decision to abandon the railway by not investing in its safety, and b) The Memoranda which enforced austerity cuts resulting in railway understaffing, hence undermining its safety. "On average, the EU has two employees per kilometer of track. In Greece, there are 0.5. In Europe, an average of €170,000 per kilometer of track is invested annually. In Greece, only €20,000 was spent in 2020," the experts found.
Due to staff cuts and replacements, stationmasters are untrained and the personnel inexperienced. There was also no monitoring mechanism to check their performance and provide for their continuous training. At the same time, employees were forced to work at exhausting rates, making human error highly likely: "The personnel performing critical duties were working beyond human limits, with only 2 days off per month."
The Railway Regulatory Authority essentially did not fulfill its role, as "it did not focus its investigations on key factors that would improve the railway, but only on non-compliance issues."
Most passengers were killed as a result of the collision. However, OSE could have protected the passengers by reducing the maximum allowable speed. “The speed limit was set at 160 km/h, regardless of whether there was signalling or not. In Germany, in parts with no signalling, the limit is 80 km/hour.” (Our comment: With a lower speed limit, the -withdrawn from other countries- scrap trains used in Greece could have never been advertised as "silver arrows," and prices could not have been increased).
The fireball was not caused by silicone oils or other materials from the trains and their "official" cargo, and “it is suspected that an unknown fuel was present in the accident.” The committee estimated that 5-7 passengers were killed due to the fireball. (Our comment: Just remember that the initial Fire Brigade report and the report of magistrate-appointed experts initially suggested that the silicone oils in the engine caused the explosion, a view the victims’ families’ experts have deconstructed for some time now).
The "failure to sanctify the accident site," as phrased by EODASAAM head, and the fact that EODASAAM had not been constituted before the accident, led to loss of crucial evidence. He said an apology is owed to the victims’ families “whose work was valuable to us.” The report refers to loss of information essential for understanding the causes and factors of the accident, as "there was no proper implementation of an operational perimeter or accurate mapping of the investigation site." This also prevented the identification of the unknown fuel.
During the press conference, the so-called landfilling of the accident site and the missing evidence was attributed to the responsible authorities' lack of knowledge and preparation in handling such an incident.
In short, the report is a slap in the face for the government. Apart from this crucial last part, they did not conclude that the landfilling was intentional. They attributed it to a lack of experience, despite evidence that has repeatedly surfaced indicating a cover-up attempt.
The government used this last part to argue (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) there is no cover-up, as government spokesman Marinakis claimed.
A reminder: In the case of Tempi, the government violated Law 5014, which they passed in January 2023. According to this law, the railway accident investigation must be conducted exclusively by the specialised body EOEDASAM. EOEDASAM however was set up only after the accident. As a result, the investigation was left to traffic accident experts, who failed to prevent the cleanup of the site and the loss of evidence.
Read
Tempi rallies in 380 cities in Greece and abroad (a guide) (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
No Trains, No Planes and Huge Protests: Strike Brings Greece to a Halt (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
Background brief: The train accident that could crash Greece’s government (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
Greece gripped by massive strikes as suspicion and anger boil over (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
The Heroic Mother Who Awakened Greece: Tempi’s Voice Unites the Nation (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
Let me tell you about singer Manolis Lidakis who passed away at 64 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
The Year 2024 was the hottest and driest in Greece (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
That’s all for this week; please forward this email to anyone you think might find it interesting and ask them to join our international community!
The AL team
