From WSWs:
Greece saw a huge show of strength by the working class and youth Friday, with hundreds of thousands taking part in the largest protests in the nation’s history. They were on the streets of the capital Athens and every other major city and town to demand justice for the 57 people who died in the 2023 Tempi train crash and an end to a government cover-up.
The protests were supported by demonstrations at more than 100 Greek embassies and consulates internationally, across all six inhabited continents.
The protests, marking the second anniversary of the February 28, 2023 deaths, were called by the Association of Relatives of Tempi Victims and were even larger than those it called at the end of January. Forced to recognise the mass oppositional mood—and as with the January protests—the ADEDY public sector trade union federation and the private sector General Confederation of Greek Workers called general strikes.
Fully 265 protests were held in Greece and 112 internationally—almost 400 in total. Major international rallies included Berlin, Germany and London, Edinburgh and Manchester in the UK; Rio in Brazil; New York and Boston in the US; and Sydney, Australia.
Participation in the latest Tempi demonstrations is larger than anything that the unions can, or would ever consider mobilising, threatening the downfall of the Conservative New Democracy (ND) government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Every inch of the main Syntagma Square in Athens was filled and its adjoining streets were packed with protesters. The rally was set to assemble at 11am, but the square was already full at not long after 8am. The daily
Efimerida ton Syntakton (The Newspaper of the Editors) noted that masses of people were unable to get anywhere near Syntagma with the protest stretching as far as a kilometre away in Omnia Square and in another direction, the Propylaea.
Many brought homemade placards and banners condemning the government as “murderers” for overseeing the preventable deaths. Among the slogans chanted and on other placards were “I have no oxygen” and “Privatizations kill”.
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