Students flocked to the Monument of Unknown Soldier in front of the Parliament on Thursday afternoon to restore the names of the 57 victims of the train tragedy in Tempi after cleaning crews erased them on Wednesday night.
Erasing the victims’ names triggered an outrage in the society and the political parties, amid allegations the government tries to “cover up” and protect especially politicians in charge of transportation.
Φοιτητές ξαναβάφουν με κόκκινη μπογιά τα ονόματα των νεκρών στα #Τέμπη μπροστά από τη Βουλή. pic.twitter.com/uvScXCt33q
— Savvas Karmaniolas (@savvaskarma) February 29, 2024
In a symbolic action, relatives and friends of the victims had written down with red paint the names of all victims during the one-year anniversary and the commemoration marches in downtown Athens a day earlier.
Thursday afternoon
Wednesday afternoon
Erasing the names triggered an outrage -and as usual in this country – now the responsible who gave the order is to be sought.
Roxani Bey, deputy mayor of cleaning and recycling of the Municipality of Athens, said on Thursday the names were removed by a municipal cleaning crew that is deployed after rallies and protests, but added that it was invited by the official Parliament guard.
“I categorically state that I never ordered anything like this to happen and I was never informed of this unjustified action, which I strongly oppose. The criticism leveled is absolutely justified,” Bey said and apologized to the families of the victims.
Parliament sources refuted any claims and responsibilities saying that the “Parliament guard is not in charge for the cleaning of the area in front of the Monument.”
Other sources of the guard of the Parliament told state-run news agency that “an officer on duty informed the cleaning crew of the municipality that there are slogans written in front of the Monument and in other places and by order of the guard they asked to erase everything, as usual, without having an exact image what did the slogans say.” They confirmed that “the final decision on the areas outside the Parliament is not the responsibility of the guard”.
Inside the Parliament and during a debate, the action to erase the victims’ names caused fierce reactions among the political parties who denounced it as an “unacceptable action.”
They stressed that neither the crime of Tempi nor the names of the victims will ever be erased from the collective memory, no matter how many attempts are made.
“The message to the government is that the 57 dead are alive and well in the memory of the Greek people and nothing and no one will erase them,” stressed KKE MP Diamanto Manolakou.
“The government should know well that the 57 names will be written again and again because they have been engraved in the collective memory and nothing can erase them. What will not be erased is the government’s shame for trying to cover up the crime,” said the parliamentary representative of the New Left, Nasos Iliopoulos.
“The study to erase the names of the 57 from the Constitution is also combined with your study to cover the place of the accident”, Eleni Karageorgopoulou, the rapporteur of the Course for Freedom.
They keep on killing these poor souls over and over again.