Tempi: Citizens Made History Throughout Greece – Biggest Protests Ever

Today, the people tabled their own “conclusion”, as millions of citizens poured onto the streets across Greece to demand justice for the Tempi rail disaster. An attempt to besmirch the massive gathering on Syntagma square Constitution with violent incidents fell by the wayside. It was almost certain that there would be tension. The least that the government should have done, as a basic tribute to the victims and the victims’ relatives, was to ensure that people could demonstrate peacefully and in safety.

The ministry of citizens’ protection and the relevant minister, Michalis Chrysochoidis, failed miserably by letting the largest gathering of the post-1974 period disperse, frightened by the sight of hundreds of thousands of people providing “oxygen”, one of the themes of the protests, by breaking a social trauma “abscess”, two years since the bleak anniversary of the Tempi national tragedy.

Providing ‘oxygen’, receiving tear gas

“We want oxygen to breathe freely,” demonstrators demanded, with the police forces replying with generous helpings of chemicals, depriving oxygen, a precious commodity for life, and driving away, fortunately only for a short while, the massive crowd that flooded Syntagma Square and the streets around it for kilometers – not to bring down the government,