EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis). This is a massive slap on Mitsotakis and his corrupt government. Greece has had many inept and corrupt governments since WWII, but none has reached this level of utter failure and corruption to the core – to the point that nobody is punished for any crime. It starts at the top, where all ministers, MPs, and all government officials enjoy either institutionalized immunity of some sort or the mafia-like does not prosecute them system…
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Greece ― the country that lets people escape justice
Cover-ups, botched investigations and a general feeling of impunity set alarm bells ringing.
ATHENS ― In the country famous for inventing democracy, there’s a sense it is fraying.
Greece has experienced a series of scandals that, while all very different, add up to a feeling that justice is crumbling ― and that those in power don’t want to rectify it. Or worse, are culpable.
“There is a sense of a systematic and concerted effort to downplay certain incidents,” said Andreas Pottakis, Greece’s ombudsman, an independent official who looks into state maladministration. This breeds “suspicions of an attempted cover-up” and negligence that “could involve political leadership.”
Three huge cases have tested the country’s belief in its judicial structures over the past couple of years. Two of them are related to disasters: A train crash in February 2023 that killed 57, and a shipwreck off Greece’s Peloponnesian coast last summer that left hundreds of Asian and African migrants presumed drowned.
The other is a sprawling spyware scandal that has embroiled the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Last week, a supreme court prosecutor cleared the country’s politicians, police and intelligence services of wrongdoing.
In isolation, these may look like the type of unfortunate incidents that any government might have to deal with.
But their handling has raised disturbing questions. Opposition parties, victims groups and independent investigators talk of cover-ups and allege crucial witnesses were blocked, legal documents were ignored and victims sidelined. Parliamentary probes have done little but muddy the waters.
“By giving a deceptive impression of a well-functioning democracy, with parliamentary inquiry committees unable to effectively conduct their work, what is actually happening sometimes amounts to direct political meddling and the neutralizing of independent watchdogs’ members,” said Vas Panagiotopoulos, who covers Greece for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a non-profit organization that defends press freedoms.
Beyond the biggest examples, Greeks perceive that public standards have eroded, whereby verbal attacks on journalists from high-ranking politicians have become commonplace, independent authorities are undermined, several migrant pushbacks have been alleged, police brutality is increasing, and civil society and media pluralism is under threat.
According to a survey conducted for the Eteron Institute to mark the 50th anniversary of Greece’s return to democracy, only 29 percent of people trust the country’s judiciary.
In an interview with POLITICO, Mitsotakis defended his country’s record. “I’ve always believed that we need to have faith in the Greek justice system,” the PM said.
Here are the three most significant recent incidents and why they are important.
The rail crash
On the night of Feb. 22, 2023, a head-on train collision killed 57 people, many of them students.
As the dust settled on the deadliest rail disaster in Greek history, deeper concerns arose concerning the functioning of the state.
“The blame runs all the way through the leadership and down to the people who were on the spot,” said Evan Vlachos, who lost his 34-year-old brother, Vaios. “You’re looking for someone who did their job right, for something that worked ― and there is a complete collapse.”
Greece rejected EU prosecutor’s call for action against 2 ex-ministers after rail crash – POLITICO
https://www.politico.eu/article/greece-european-public-prosecutors-office-eppo-ministers-christos-spirtzis-konstantinos-karamanlis-rail-crash/
Petition · ΤΡΑΓΩΔΙΑ -ΤΕΜΠΗ 2023 – Greece · Change.org – (Greek Citizens?)
Home | PETI | Committees | European Parliament (europa.eu) – (EU Citizens?)
New lawsuit filed against ND ministers for Tempi train tragedy (keeptalkinggreece.com)
https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2024/06/13/news-lawsuit-ministers-nd/
Are the laws in Greece too lenient?
Will those responsible for the Tempi train tragedy just pay off some career criminals to be the scapegoats?
As seen in Popular Culture – Breaking Bad (TV Series)
James “Jimmy” Edward Kilkelly, better known as Jimmy In-‘N-Out is a lifelong criminal and professional fall guy. Institutionalized to prison life, he prefers incarceration to freedom, and thus offers to be a scapegoat through Saul Goodman.
plural noun: scapegoats
a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.
Were the people who were accused of starting the wildfires in Greece paid off to be the fall guys?
It is tragic and sobering fact, that Greece still has very low or non existent punishments for people that have taken their job lightly, of safeguarding the lives of train passengers, migrants and fire victims.
However, let’s look at these incidents isolated from each other. Greece’s trains were always badly run, great loss to taxpayers and a source of cushy jobs and grift. Mitsotakis certainly did not initiate such a culture. I am sure he was aware of the issue, but as soon as he assumed the premiership, he had to face the migrant push by Turkey at the Evros border and then, for 2 years, the Covid dislocation. Couple those set backs with the effects of the financial meltdown of 2015, plus the flood of refugees at the Greek islands and it is obvious that he was pre-occupied with more pressing concerns than a rail system that transported a tiny slice of the Greek public.
The cause of the accident was the “oxadelfismos” of the ones responsible for the safety of the railroad. After years of no deadly accidents, (except one with no victims), you grow complacent. That’s why an automatic alarm was needed, which is readily available, to warn the engineers that the same train track is being used.
Let’s not forget, another country that doesn’t pay much attention to its railroads, America, had a rash of train collisions, de railments and other accidents at the same year as the Greek tragedy. I perfectly understand that the families of the victims, in their pain and anguish, are looking to lash at anyone who might be remotely responsible. But only looking and learning what caused it will prevent future tragedies.
As for the migrant boat sinking, the responsible criminals are the ones who profited by overloading the boat, namely the traffickers. If the Greek coast guard towed the boat and it sank in the process, is a lesson to be learned, not a punishable offense. Moreover, many NGOs, who profit just as much as the traffickers, are known to blame migrant receiving countries as the culprits of accidents, which gives those NGOs an opportunity to fund raise from the naive citizens of Europe.
Greece has not contributed to the misery of Africa and the Middle East. Former colonial powers did that. Let them handle the effects of their colonialism and theft of natural resources of the migrants’ nations. Why should GREECE bear the burden of others’ sins?
I agree with you Bobbie . while Independent media claim what everybody knows .. that the U.S , Israeli and EU/Nato Crime syndicate… ..have stripped the Governments of Greece and Cyprus and the Rest of the EU/Nato countries of any Economic, Political , Military and even Religious sovereignty to not only prosecute ” Themselves” but the members of the US , Israeli, and EU/Nato parliaments criminally libel aiding and abetting Neo Nazi Jewish Zionist mafia Regime in the Ukraine and Israel violating International , domestic , UN Charter , Rico Act laws and Nuremburg Tribunal laws and codes !
Yes Bob.. Greece and the Greek Coast Guard are not criminally libel for the deaths of Migrants from Syria .. the U.S and EU parliamentary members are criminally libel for the deaths of all Migrants from Syria and Middle East ..or as you call them… Western Colonialist !..
The US and EU sanctions on Syria are to blame. There is no war in Syria.
Recently, hundreds of Syrian men, women and children migrants drowned off the coast of Greece, escaping U.S .economic sanctions and deprivation in Syria…and the Greek Navy was blamed for not trying to save them ….
The US and EU sanctions on Syria are to blame. There is no war in Syria. The battlefields are long silent across Syria, but there is no recovery or rebuilding allowed in Syria, because the US and EU sanctions prevent any rebuilding or foreign investments in rebuilding projects and U.S. occupation of Syria’s oil and gas fields prevent them from accessing energy revenue and meeting their own basic needs…
Infrastructure, hospitals, homes, schools, factories and businesses are all left waiting for the sanctions to be lifted to orders parts and supplies from abroad to begin the long process of recovery from the US-NATO attack on Syria for regime change, which ended in failure.
The issue Bob .. is not Greece escaping from Justice, but how do Americans and Greeks prevent Organized Crime families of America and EU from escaping justice !