Violent protests and general strike roil cities across Greece
ATHENS, Greece — Riot police fired volleys of tear gas, stun grenades and water canon at protesters hurling gasoline bombs and smashed-up paving stones in Athens on Friday during a massive demonstration marking the second anniversary of Greece's worst rail disaster that has become a symbol of institutional failure.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country as part of a general strike called to demand justice for the 57 people killed on Feb. 28, 2023, when a passenger train collided head-on with a freight train.
Among the largest demonstrations since Greece's debt crisis a decade ago, Friday's protests were fueled by public resentment against the conservative government's perceived lack of accountability in the wake of the disaster, and the slow pace of the investigation.
Violence also broke out on the fringes of a protest in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where dozens of hooded protesters broke away from the main rally to clash with riot police.
In Athens, repeated rounds of clashes near Parliament left at least 20 people requiring medical attention, authorities said. Police said 120 people were detained, with 27 of them arrested. Confrontations spilled over into nearby streets, with groups of hooded protesters entering an archaeological site near the ancient Roman monument of Hadrian's Arch and pelting riot police with rocks.
Unions called a general strike in support of the mass mobilization led by the victims' relatives. Critics say that politicians should be held accountable for failures that led up to the collision, but so far only rail officials have been charged with any crimes.
The rail disaster in Tempe left dozens injured and exposed deficiencies in transportation infrastructure.
'The full truth must come to light, and those responsible, no matter how high their position, must be held accountable,' said Yannis Panagopoulos, president of the General Confederation of Greek Workers, the country's largest labor union, which has backed Friday's strike.
Flights and rail services were canceled, ferries halted and public transportation was severely disrupted. Businesses and public services have also been affected, with many stores in Athens and other cities closed, leaving messages of solidarity for the victims' families in front windows.
Demonstrations were taking place in more than 300 cities and towns in Greece and abroad. Protesters in Athens, chanting 'You count profits. We count lives,' carried black balloons and anti-government banners and blared aerosol horns.
Athens municipal worker Costas Reintzopoulos said the rail crash had highlighted longstanding demands for safer working conditions; eleven of those who died were railway employees.
'Every day, there is a demand to know the truth about what happened, and every day there is demand for better safety measures in the workplace. That is a key reason why this remains relevant,' he said. 'We don't want to mourn more dead people, who leave in the morning to go to work and we don't know if they'll come back.'
Memorial services were held at Orthodox churches in Athens for the victims, who included many university students returning from a long weekend. Their families had urged protesters to remain peaceful and keep the focus on remembrance rather than politics.
Yet the demonstrations have created a politically precarious moment for Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' government.
His conservatives maintain a strong lead in the polls, but public dissatisfaction over the Tempe disaster has led to surging support for anti-establishment parties on both the left and right. Opposition leaders, who are struggling to gain traction, are weighing whether to put forward a censure motion.
Mitsotakis promised to continue work to improve rail safety, adding: 'Every Greek participates in this mourning, united under the common demand for truth.'
The mountainous country is largely road-reliant and the Greek railway system is centered on a single route between Athens and Thessaloniki, a fact that made the collision harder for many to understand.
A long-awaited report from the investigation into the crash, released Thursday, blamed human error, outdated infrastructure and major systemic failures for the head-on collision.
Surviving passengers described tumbling carriages, fires and smashed windows as they scrambled to escape. Bodies were severely burned or dismembered. Funerals across Greece, many streamed or broadcast live, turned private grief into a shared national experience.
Hours after the collision, Maria Krystianou rushed to the scene of the tragedy to search for her missing daughter, 21-year-old Maria-Thomai, as the train cars still smoldered. After a two-day wait, Maria-Thomai's death was finally confirmed with a DNA match.
Krystianou, a 52-year-old pediatrician, has since become a leading figure in the campaign to hold politicians to account for the crash. This week she publicly thanked unions and associations that joined the protests, including doctors at public hospitals, and lawyers and judges who will hold a minute's silence in courts Friday.
'For those of us who had our children and loved ones on that train, a part of us remains with them and will never return. The unrelenting pain and the unimaginable reality are with us forever,' Krystianou told a crowd outside parliament. Pointing to the protesters, she added: 'This is for you, my girl, and for those of us who never made it.'
Gatopoulos and Becatoros write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Lefteris Pitarakis and Theodora Tongas in Athens and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
UK ministers delay AI regulation amid plans for more ‘comprehensive' bill
Proposals to regulate artificial intelligence have been delayed by at least a year as UK ministers plan a bumper bill to regulate the technology and its use of copyrighted material. Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, intends to introduce a 'comprehensive' AI bill in the next parliamentary session to address concerns about issues including safety and copyright. This will not be ready before the next king's speech, and is likely to trigger concerns about delays to regulating the technology. The date for the next king's speech has not been set but several sources said it could take place in May 2026. Labour had originally planned to introduce a short, narrowly drafted AI bill within months of entering office that would have been focused on large language models, such as ChatGPT. The legislation would have required companies to hand over their models for testing by the UK's AI Security Institute. It was intended to address concerns that AI models could become so advanced that they posed a risk to humanity. This bill was delayed, with ministers choosing to wait and align with Donald Trump's administration in the US because of concerns that any regulation might weaken the UK's attractiveness to AI companies. Ministers now want to include copyright rules for AI companies as part of the AI bill. 'We feel we can use that vehicle to find a solution on copyright,' a government source said. 'We've been having meetings with both creators and tech people and there are interesting ideas on moving forward. That work will begin in earnest once the data bill passes.' The government is already locked in a standoff with the House of Lords over copyright rules in a separate data bill. It would allow AI companies to train their models using copyrighted material unless the rights holder opts out. It has caused a fierce backlash from the creative sector, with artists including Elton John, Paul McCartney and Kate Bush throwing their weight behind a campaign to oppose the changes. This week, peers backed an amendment to the data bill that would require AI companies to disclose if they were using copyrighted material to train their models, in an attempt to enforce current copyright law. Ministers have refused to back down, however, even though Kyle has expressed regret about the way the government has gone about the changes. The government insists the data bill is not the right vehicle for the copyright issue and has promised to publish an economic impact assessment and series of technical reports on copyright and AI issues. In a letter to MPs on Saturday, Kyle made a further commitment to establish a cross-party working group of parliamentarians on AI and copyright. Beeban Kidron, the film director and cross-bench peer who has been campaigning on behalf of the creative sector, said on Friday that ministers 'have shafted the creative industries, and they have proved willing to decimate the UK's second-biggest industrial sector'. Kyle told the Commons last month that AI and copyright should be dealt with as part of a separate 'comprehensive' bill. Most of the UK public (88%) believe the government should have the power to stop the use of an AI product if it is deemed to pose a serious risk, according to a survey published by the Ada Lovelace Institute and the Alan Turing Institute in March. More than 75% said the government or regulators should oversee AI safety rather than private companies alone. Scott Singer, an AI expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: 'The UK is strategically positioning itself between the US and EU. Like the US, Britain is attempting to avoid overly aggressive regulation that could harm innovation while exploring ways to meaningfully protect consumers. That's the balancing act here.'
3 hours ago
Contractor in Syria uncovers a surprise beneath the rubble: an ancient tomb complex
MARAAT AL-NUMAN, Syria -- A contractor digging into the earth where the rubble of a destroyed house had been cleared away in northern Syria stumbled across a surprise: the remains of an underground Byzantine tomb complex believed to be more than 1,500 years old. The discovery emerged last month in the town of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province, which is strategically located on the route between the cities of Aleppo and Damascus. The community became a touchpoint in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war that ended with the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive in December. Assad's forces seized the area back from opposition control in 2020. Houses were looted and demolished. Aerial images of the area show many houses still standing but without roofs. Now residents are beginning to return and rebuild. In the course of a reconstruction project, stone openings were uncovered indicating the presence of ancient graves. Residents notified the directorate of antiquities, which dispatched a specialized team to inspect and secure the site. Aboveground, it's a residential neighborhood with rows of cinder-block buildings, many of them damaged in the war. Next to one of those buildings, a pit leads down to the openings of two burial chambers, each containing six stone tombs. The sign of the cross is etched into the top of one stone column. 'Based on the presence of the cross and the pottery and glass pieces that were found, this tomb dates back to the Byzantine era,' said Hassan al-Ismail, director of antiquities in Idlib. He noted that the discovery adds to an already rich collection of archeological sites in the area. Idlib "has a third of the monuments of Syria, containing 800 archaeological sites in addition to an ancient city,' al-Ismail said. The Byzantine Empire, which began in the 4th century AD, was a continuation of the Roman empire with its capital in Constantinople — today's Istanbul — and Christianity as its official religion. Abandoned Byzantine-era settlements called Dead Cities stretch across rocky hills and plains in northwest Syria, their weathered limestone ruins featuring remnants of stone houses, basilicas, tombs and colonnaded streets. In the past, the owners of sites where archeological ruins were found sometimes covered them up, fearful that their property would be seized to preserve the ruins, said Ghiath Sheikh Diab, a resident of Maarat al-Numan who witnessed the moment when the tomb complex was uncovered. He said he hoped the new government will fairly compensate property owners in such cases and provide assistance to the displaced people who have returned to the area to find their homes destroyed. The years of war led to significant damage to Syria's archeological sites, not only from bombing but from looting and unauthorized digging. Some see in the ruins a sign of hope for economic renewal. Another local resident, Abed Jaafar, came with his son to explore the newly discovered tombs and take pictures. 'In the old days, a lot of foreign tourists used to come to Maarat just to see the ruins,' he said. 'We need to take care of the antiquities and restore them and return them to the way they were before … and this will help to bring back the tourism and the economy.'
San Francisco Chronicle
5 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Contractor in Syria uncovers a surprise beneath the rubble: an ancient tomb complex
MARAAT AL-NUMAN, Syria (AP) — A contractor digging into the earth where the rubble of a destroyed house had been cleared away in northern Syria stumbled across a surprise: the remains of an underground Byzantine tomb complex believed to be more than 1,500 years old. The discovery emerged last month in the town of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province, which is strategically located on the route between the cities of Aleppo and Damascus. The community became a touchpoint in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war that ended with the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive in December. Assad's forces seized the area back from opposition control in 2020. Houses were looted and demolished. Aerial images of the area show many houses still standing but without roofs. Now residents are beginning to return and rebuild. In the course of a reconstruction project, stone openings were uncovered indicating the presence of ancient graves. Residents notified the directorate of antiquities, which dispatched a specialized team to inspect and secure the site. Aboveground, it's a residential neighborhood with rows of cinder-block buildings, many of them damaged in the war. Next to one of those buildings, a pit leads down to the openings of two burial chambers, each containing six stone tombs. The sign of the cross is etched into the top of one stone column. 'Based on the presence of the cross and the pottery and glass pieces that were found, this tomb dates back to the Byzantine era,' said Hassan al-Ismail, director of antiquities in Idlib. He noted that the discovery adds to an already rich collection of archeological sites in the area. Idlib "has a third of the monuments of Syria, containing 800 archaeological sites in addition to an ancient city,' al-Ismail said. The Byzantine Empire, which began in the 4th century AD, was a continuation of the Roman empire with its capital in Constantinople — today's Istanbul — and Christianity as its official religion. Abandoned Byzantine-era settlements called Dead Cities stretch across rocky hills and plains in northwest Syria, their weathered limestone ruins featuring remnants of stone houses, basilicas, tombs and colonnaded streets. In the past, the owners of sites where archeological ruins were found sometimes covered them up, fearful that their property would be seized to preserve the ruins, said Ghiath Sheikh Diab, a resident of Maarat al-Numan who witnessed the moment when the tomb complex was uncovered. He said he hoped the new government will fairly compensate property owners in such cases and provide assistance to the displaced people who have returned to the area to find their homes destroyed. The years of war led to significant damage to Syria's archeological sites, not only from bombing but from looting and unauthorized digging. Another local resident, Abed Jaafar, came with his son to explore the newly discovered tombs and take pictures. 'In the old days, a lot of foreign tourists used to come to Maarat just to see the ruins,' he said. 'We need to take care of the antiquities and restore them and return them to the way they were before … and this will help to bring back the tourism and the economy.'
