Editorial Ta Nea: Radio silence

Anniversaries serve as reminders.

We remember a pleasant or unpleasant event, analyse its parameters, place it in context, and study its repercussions over time in the place they occurred.

Over the years, the anniversaries of the deadly torching of a branch of the Marfin Bank in the very centre of Athens [during a huge anti-bailout memorandum protest march οn 5 May, 2010] have an additional parameter.

They remind us that 12 years after the horrific event the crime remains unpunished.

The culprits – and all those who aided them, provided cover for them, and intentionally blocked firefighters from approaching the blazing building – are still among us, free and on the loose.

Τhe three employees who lost their lives were young.

Their names were Angeliki Papathanasopoulou (who was pregnant), Epameinondas Tsakalis, and Paraskevi Zoulia.

Every year on this day we remember the tragic event, get choked up, become angry yet again, rise up, wonder, and demand answers.

Then we forget.

It is precisely that oblivion that is the greatest factor in the perpetuation of this impunity.

Individuals who were responsible for the lack of proper security at the bank branch were tried and convicted.

After great delays, two individuals were charged with arson, tried, and acquitted in 2016.

Since then, there has been radio silence. It is a deathlike and deafening silence.

Two years ago, when Michalis Chrsohoidis was the current government’s citizen’s protection [public order] minister, there was an announcement that new evidence had emerged and that the case would be re-opened.

After that, for unrelated reasons, Chrysohoidis was replaced and no one knows what has become of the case.

Only a memorial plaque was placed at the scene of the tragedy and it has repeatedly been vandalised.

The families of the victims, but also all of society, are still expecting to learn what exactly happened on that dark day.

Getting to the bottom of this case is the only way for us to leave behind hatred and divisions.