Is a cover-up underway for the tragic accident that costed a motorbiker’s life? 
 

A car driven by a policeman in the guard of PM’s sister, MP Dora Bakoyannis, was implicated in a tragic car accident outside the Greek parliament on Friday 12 March, where a 23-year-old motorbike driver was left clinically brain dead. This of course would not be a political issue, since Bakoyannis bears no responsibility for the accident. However, the whole thing took political dimensions as the accident was not reported in the press until 48 hours after it happened when Bakoyannis made a relevant statement. Till then, some accounts on social media were attacked as “fake news.” Videos released on social media show the traffic police officer who came on the spot to verbally attack one of the eye-witnesses: “Are you wearing your helmet? Go away from here, disappear!” he is heard saying. Before that, the eye-witness is heard saying “He passed with green and you smashed him.” The Greek Police is reported to have ordered an internal inquiry both into the policeman driving -who is set out of service temporarily- and into the traffic officer.

Both the eye witness testimonies and the videos available lead to the conclusion that the motorbiker was legally driving on the green light on his lane, having priority, while the policeman seemed at fault turning left from the opposite lane to enter the Parliament and while there seemed to be no traffic officer there who could stop the traffic. At a spot where many policemen are around, why wouldn’t any of them stop the traffic to avoid any accident? And why did the state car maneuver illegally, more so since no traffic officer was there to ensure that no accident would happen and while it could very well enter from the proper entrance to the Parliament’s parking some hundred meters away on Amalias street?

The whole thing became more clear with a video given in publicity on Friday by newspaper Kathimerini. But as you would expect for everybody to be satisfied that more evidence came to light that would help the investigation into this tragic accident, the President of the Greek Parliament Kostas Tasoulas ordered an official inquiry into the leak, as it seems the video has been leaked from inside the Parliament. Really?

Meanwhile, Jason’s (that was the name of the dead motorcyclist) family donated his organs. He will kiss life into six recipients. “He will donate his organs. He will become an organ donor,” his mother said. “I want him back, I don’t want anything else. And because he was such a good boy, he was giving, he will now give his organs, he will give his happiness and love and sensitivity to some other human being. And I wish that those who will receive the organs will be young people - I asked for that, but I cannot choose- to live happily and take even a bit of his sensitivity and take delight.”

Couriers on their motorbikes marched on Wednesday to the Parliament asking for justice for Jason, who appears to have been their colleague. Being a courier is one of the most precarious and dangerous professions in Greece, working underpaid, often uninsured, with poorly maintained motorcycles, poor protection means, and rushing to deliver quickly. In a symbolic move, the motorbikers laid their helmets on the road.
 

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Does Joseph K. live in today’s Greece?

Joseph K., the protagonist of the allegorical novel The Trial by Franz Kafka is a rather ordinary bank employee, who is arrested for unspecified crimes and is unable to make sense of his trial. The events described below reminded us of Kafka’s story.

On 10 March it was reported that the police arrested the man responsible for toppling down from his motorbike the policeman who was immediately afterward beaten by an angry mob in recent Nea Smyrni events. Let us remind you that the protests in Nea Smyrni some ten days ago started after a young man was beaten in common view with no reason by the police. According to the reports, the police identified the man after closely examining footage of the incident, a testimony from “someone who seemed to know his identity and way of operating” and Facebook posts. The arrested was described as a 30-year-old Greek-Iraqi usual suspect for drugs, nicknamed “The Indian.” A file had already been set up for him with attempted manslaughter and other charges against unknown people. The police had earlier arrested a 22-year-old man of Albanian descent, also accused of participating in the attack against the policeman. As evidence, the police cited that he had lost… his wallet at the spot of the attack with his ID in it and he had gone to the police to declare the loss. He is now prosecuted also for a “manslaughter attempt.”

However, on Thursday the “Indian’s” lawyer gave publicity a video, which shows the arrested man playing basketball in Elefsina during the day and time of the attack in Nea Smyrni, a video which seems to fully verify what the man had testified. His lawyer asked for his immediate release, accusing the police of imprisoning his client by provocatively ignoring all evidence and testimonies to his defense. What could have happened to this man if he had stayed at home that day and he was not lucky enough to have been videotaped in a public space?

Meanwhile, a chilling testimony made its way to the press. 21-year-old Aris Papazaharioudakis gave an interview to “Efimerida ton Syntakton” newspaper accusing the police of abducting him, torturing him for hours in its headquarters in Athens, and stating that the Minister of Citizen Protection will bear the sole responsibility for whatever happens to him from now on, or to his friend who is also charged and imprisoned for attempted manslaughter against the policeman, without -as he claims- evidence to prove this. Papazaharioudakis was among those arrested after the Nea Smyrni events and who were later released on restrictive terms. He was finally not charged with attempted manslaughter.

His arrest happened the day after Nea Smyrni events, a few meters away from the building where the anarchists collective in which he belongs is hosted. He had participated in the protests against police violence “and there is no evidence to incriminate me or connect me with the incident.” He describes how men with hoods abducted him, tied his hands on his back, wore him a hood, and threw him in a car by punching and kicking him. “At this point, I didn’t know if I had to deal with police or Mafia people.” He had before that “being informed of the disappearance of my close friend, who has been imprisoned with unfounded charges.”

When they arrived finally at the police headquarters, “they got me out and started hitting me, they threw me in the elevator and telling me ‘we will rape even your puppy.”

“They put me in a room. My hands were tied on the back and I was wearing a hood, like a war prisoner. I don’t know how many passed from this office, probably all the police force was going up and down to beat me. Some were beating me without talking, others were swearing, they were asking me persistently to tell them what my team is. I was explaining to them I am no fan, no hooligan and I got the reply ‘We don’t give a shit, you’ll tell us a team.’ At some point, the lights went off, and then the only light I could see was when the door was opening for someone to come in and hit me. They were letting me take a breath for five minutes. Then they were hitting the desks, I was hearing equipment and zippers sounds and they were asking ‘Are you ready?’ I was replying negatively, it was like a virtual execution environment. One man hit my face violently against the desk (...) There was not a single part of my body not to have been hit after eight hours.”

The second round of his torture, as Papazaharioudakis says, started when somebody “showed me a window and told me ‘If you seek for salvation, nobody will prohibit you. Otherwise, in four days from now, you’ll go to jail for attempted manslaughter of a policeman and from there you will be able to count the likes in your posts.”

Papazaharioudakis describes more of this treatment and he says he was afterward put in a cell with his arrested friend, where he claims they were held under different conditions from the others, “in full isolation. No water, no toilet. The only help came from the people arrested in Nea Smyrni, they gave us bottles of water. This is what we drank, in there we peed afterward.” He claims they lied on bare cement, with no mattress, no blanket, and they were not allowed to talk to a lawyer at the time.

In an unprecedented move, 22 policemen serving in the police headquarters where supposedly the torture took place sent extra-judicial documents to “Efimerida ton Syntakton” and “Documento” newspapers relating to the torture-related reporting, demanding they restore the truth as they “do not cite another opinion-did not crosscheck.” They seem to have missed what journalism is about.

At the same time, 55 SYRIZA MPs filed a parliamentary question to Chryssochoides regarding another serious accusation made by an 18-year-old woman. The woman has said that during her arrest in Nea Smyrni and her stay at the police headquarters was subjected to illegal violence, beatings, rape threats, and insult of sexual dignity by policemen.

This week also, the first Vice-President of the Panhellenic Police Employees Union Thanasis Davouras stated in relation to the Nea Smyrni events that “for three baton strikes we were apologizing to all the filthy crowd.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Citizen Protection Chryssochoides stated on Friday in the Parliament that “we have the fewer and more benign policing means in Europe” and that “police abuses of power are very few.” He also proposed that “we should stop putting our country’s reputation at stake for minor reasons, more so since summer and the tourist season are about to start.” Terribly sorry if reports on police violence ruin your mood, Minister.
 

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Coronavirus update.

Coronavirus patients on ventilators and new cases are now at record levels in Greece and hospitals are struggling to keep beds and intensive care units available. As of Friday, 64 coronavirus deaths were reported, 649 intubated patients, and 2,785 new cases. Experts warn that the situation is not going to improve over the next ten days.

It is reported that when a bed in a specialized coronavirus ICU becomes available, due to the patient having recovered or died, it is booked within seconds, through an online platform, for the next patient waiting. Doctors say that patients are waiting on portable ventilators in normal wards reserved for less severe Covid19 cases. Hospital Employees Union POEDIN president stated on Thursday: “We detected 51 intubated patients on non-ICU beds in Attika. There are many more.”

Director of the X-Ray Department at Gennimatas hospital Spyros Antonopoulos said in an interview on Wednesday in his 30 years in the hospital he has never before seen such “unprecedented war-like conditions.” He also declared there is no available bed in the hospital -simple or ICU and that the doctors are forced to make choices.

Well, Antonopoulos may risk facing the public prosecutor. Why do we say that? It was reported this week that AHEPA Hospital Employees Union President Thanasis Soulis has been called to the Public Prosecutor’s office after the government-assigned hospital management filed a complaint against him for… revealing at the beginning of November in a TV interview that the hospital shift started with no ICU beds available. The hospital management had then dismissed the statements as “fake news” and later in the day, seven ICU beds appeared as available. As POEDIN later revealed, “when patients are dismissed or die, beds empty. That afternoon, the manager turned the Cardiac Surgery Ward into Covid 6-bed ICU and added a bed in the 25 beds ICU. That’s how seven beds appeared.”

Soulis has not been the only doctor to face governmental resentment. It was reported this week that the cancer hospital Aghios Savvas Employees Union president Kostas Katarachias is to be fired on 31 March, being the only locum doctor in the country that his contract has not been extended until October. According to reports, this comes as a “punishment” after the Union had protested the lack of proper anti-Covid measures in one of the most sensitive hospitals in the country. After the management, following fierce reactions, called off an investigation trying to blame everything on hospital staff, Katarachias was suddenly moved to Sotiria hospital and now is facing laying-off.

We remind you that Thessaloniki Hospital Doctors Union ENITH president Dafni Katsimpa faced prosecution, Hospital Doctors Union OENGE president Afrodite Rentziou was called to the police station, union presidents in Giannitsa, and Grevena faced disciplinary persecution, while a file has been made against POEDIN president Michalis Giannakos.

And while doctors struggle with limited means to treat patients, the Greek Police announced they received 53 more vehicles, this time of the small truck type. These are to be added to the 1.453 vehicles they received in December 2020 and 45 more this February.

Following the upward coronavirus spiral, the Athens-Piraeus Hospital Doctors Union EINAP board unanimously called on Wednesday the government to immediately requisite at least four weeks private clinics and acquire ICU beds both for Covid and non-Covid patients.

ND government admitted on Wednesday that the public health care system is “beleaguered” by the spike in Covid patients. However, government spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni stated they will wait to see if the increase is “circumstantial.” How circumstantial could it be, since wastewater analysis showed on Wednesday a viral load spike in several Greek cities?

A call for doctors in private practice to volunteer their services has gone largely unheeded, with only 50 doctors responding to the call. Health Minister Kikilias said that if some 200 doctors did not respond to his call in the next 48 hours, he would recommend the prime minister to allow health authorities to force them to work for the state health system.

Meanwhile, as the government has not done anything to boost the NHS, they now ended up turning one of the biggest hospitals in Athens, Erythros Stavros, into an exclusively Covid patients hospital, with all the tremendous repercussions for patients of other illnesses. For example, cancer patients treated by their personal doctors there, are expected to wander from hospital to hospital to get their treatment?

There is a tremendous failure in Covid19 management as the deaths and the cases spike shows. Thus, the government now plans to reopen the economy. Government spokeswoman Peloni said it’s not “opening” is “discharge valves.” Thus, on Friday it was announced that hair and beauty salons and archaeological sites will open from March 22, a nighttime curfew nationwide will start two hours later, at 9 p.m. during weekends, churches will also reopen for services on March 21, 25, and 26, for services linked to Orthodox Easter. Finally, it was announced that people will have access to do a free, rapid antigen test, once a week, at their local pharmacy.
 

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Read.

Convicted terrorist Dimitris Koufontinas ends his hunger strike: After 65 days, Koufontinas decided on Sunday to end his hunger strike. He justified his decision by stating: “The world judges those who took to the streets, but what is happening out there is much more important than the reason why it started. In the face of the force of these struggles, I declare, from my part, that with my heart and mind I am there, among you all.”

Does the Greek government signal a hardening of its stance towards migrants? A 25-year-old migrant Afghan father, who is grieving the loss of his only child during one of these shaky boats’ journeys to supposed safety, has found himself charged with child endangerment for taking his son on the perilous journey from Turkey to the nearby Greek island of Samos. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. “The charges are a stark departure from Greece’s previous treatment of migrant shipwreck survivors. This is believed to be the first time in the European Union that a surviving parent faces criminal prosecution for the death of their child in the pursuit of a better life in Europe,” AP writes. Read the full story here. 

Mayors of three Aegean islands against EU’s new migration pact.

Erdogan, EU chiefs discuss Turkey-EU ties, East Med ahead of EU summit.

French defence minister, Russian PM to stand in for leaders on March 25.

Torrential downpour reveals bronze bull statue in Olympia.

WMO Hurricane Committee ends the use of Greek alphabet.
 

Watch.
 

Awarded journalist Yorgos Avgeropoulos documentary “Parontes” (“Being Present”): An in-depth account, in every aspect of our lives, political, economic and social, of the effects of the pandemic, with an immediate record – just as it happens, through many different exclusive testimonies and stories. The film unfolds against the backdrop of the public healthcare system and follows the prominent figures at the forefront of the COVID-19 response, as well as the unsung heroes of the pandemic. Political decisions and backroom maneuvers come under the microscope and are juxtaposed with the struggles of those who bear the brunt of the new crisis on a daily basis. Through the Greek experience, Avgeropoulos manages to capture a universal reality and poses critical questions about the post-Covid era the world is entering. Free screenings continue this Weekend. See the schedule here.