Sawt Falasteen - Mother of Greek train tragedy victim takes on politicians in bid for 'justice'

Maria Karystianou has emerged as a figurehead for the families campaigning for justice for their loved ones killed in the February 2023 train crash in Tempe, central Greece. The disaster sparked immense anger across the Mediterranean nation.

Like many Greeks, the 53-year-old paediatrician has accused the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of an attempted cover-up. She launched her party to combat the "corruption and cronyism" many see as omnipresent in Greek political life.

"There is absolutely no chance that the situation in Greece will improve if citizens do not enter parliament to put in place the necessary changes," she said.

Along with tens of thousands of other protesters, Karystianou will take to the streets again on Saturday for the third anniversary of the tragedy, in which she lost her teenage daughter.

More than 300,000 people rallied to mark last year's anniversary, one of the biggest demonstrations the country has seen since the financial crisis.

"For three years, we have been out on the streets, not just to organise protests, but also to file countless legal appeals to obtain justice for our loved ones," she told AFP in her apartment in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

"Unfortunately, everywhere we go we have ended up running into brick walls."

- 'Closing ranks' -

Most of those killed in the crash on February 28, 2023, were young students aboard a passenger locomotive carrying some 350 people from Athens to Thessaloniki that hit a freight train in the dead of the night.

Karystianou's 19-year-old daughter, Marthi, was returning home from carnival when she died in the crash.

The two trains were allowed to run on the same track for more than 10 minutes without triggering any alarm, laying bare the parlous state of the Greek railway network's security failsafes, despite European Union grants for their modernisation.

While Mitsotakis blamed the collision on "fatal human errors", the prime minister also admitted to "chronic failures of the state".

Nearly 40 people will go on trial over the tragedy on March 23, including railway executives and the station master on duty that night. They risk prison sentences of up to 20 years.

Yet not a single politician will be in the dock, despite the chorus of criticism of Mitsotakis's conservative government over its disastrous handling of the accident.

The victims' families have also protested that valuable clues were lost when the crash site was bulldozed soon after the accident. That incident led to allegations the government was literally trying to bury the evidence.

"We know how things work in Greece," Karystianou insisted, taking aim at "collusion" in a "system of closing ranks... that often works against citizens while protecting politicians".

- 'Hushed up' -

"Besides the pain of losing our loved ones, we have this feeling of being scorned, looked down on," she said, worrying that "that this crime, like many others, will be hushed up".

In early January, Karystianou -- whose approval ratings far outstrip Mitsotakis's -- made waves with the announcement that she was forming a political party.

Even after sparking a heated debate by wading into the hot-button issue of the right to abortion, one opinion poll suggests more than 30 percent of Greeks could vote for Karystianou's new movement, just behind Mitsotakis's ruling conservatives.

This, despite the fact that Karystianou has yet to reveal what the new party might be called.

"The cornerstone is the establishment of the rule of law," said Karystianou, nicknamed "The Mother of Tempi" by the Greek press.

A devout woman who is also mother to a son, Karystianou insists that she has made the fight for the truth her life's "mission".

"I have to see this through to the very end because I swore to my child that I would," she said.

G.AbuHamad--SF-PST