
From The National Herald - April 14, 2025
ATHENS – A group calling Revolutionary Class-Related Self-Defense said it was responsible for setting off a bomb outside the offices of Hellenic Train which has been assailed for failures that led to a 2023 train crash that killed 57 people.
The explosion resulted in limited damage and no injuries. The perpetrators had forewarned of the explosion by calling two media organizations about 40 minutes before it happened.
In a lengthy posting on the website Athens.indymedia.org, the perpetrators explained the reasons for their action, which they said was part of an armed struggle against the state.
It also dedicated the bombings to “the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance” and paid tribute to Kyriakos Xymitiris, a man killed in 2024 when the explosive device he was assembling exploded in a central Athens apartment.
In its post, it claimed that its attack on Hellenic Train was a response to the fatal Tempi train collision and “the effort to cover it up,” noting that “the coverup of the Tempi crime is the assumption by the government of its political responsibility.”
Two years after the head-on collision of a passenger train from Athens with a cargo train from Thessaloniki on the same track, the New Democracy government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has been dogged by critics and protesters.
He denied there was a coverup but the criticism stepped up after the head of a newly-set up agency to investigate the crash said a reference to whether possible flammables on the cargo train would be removed from the report.
The blowback resulted in his stepping down, which only added to the disbelief by many Greeks – some 70 percent said in a survey they don’t trust the government’s handling or response – and Mitsotakis can’t shake his detractors.
There have been contradictions in the report and government officials changing their stances but no one has been tried yet although a stationmaster and train agency officials are being charged, but no politicians.
A new extremist group claimed responsibility Sunday for a bomb that exploded near the offices of Hellenic Train, Greece’s main railway services operator and the planting of another near the Labor Ministry in early February.
The explosion also came during widespread public anger over a 2023 railway disaster, Greece’s worst, in which 57 people were killed and dozens more injured when a freight train and a passenger train heading in opposite directions were accidentally put on the same track.
The deadly accident exposed severe deficiencies in Greece’s railway system, including in safety systems, and has triggered mass protests led by relatives of the victims against the country’s conservative government on the occasion of the accident’s second anniversary.
In its statement, which serves as a sort of manifesto, Revolutionary Class Self-Defense connects the accident with what it called the “murders” of the proletariat in the form of workplace accidents, by capitalists.
The new anarchist group aimed most of its outrage at the train disaster and government response and said that it acted because: “In the dilemma of chains or weapons, we must resolutely choose the latter.”
Greece has a long history of politically motivated violence dating back to the 1970s, with domestic extremist groups carrying out small-scale bombings that usually cause damage but rarely lead to injuries.
While the groups most active in the 1980s and 1990s have been dismantled, new smaller groups have emerged. Authorities are calling them a new generation of domestic extremists.
“With the blood not yet dry, they attributed the (train) accident to human error and the ‘chronic deficiencies of the Greek state,’ in effect demanding even more freedom of movement for capital, more privatizations and new attacks on any remaining state-owned infrastructure,” the extremist group said.
Hellenic Train, the operator of passenger and cargo train services, was once a subsidiary of state-owned Hellenic Railways. It was split and sold to Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane in 2017. Hellenic Railways retains ownership and responsibility for the maintenance of the rail infrastructure, including the train stations.
Police say they are following leads, including images of one or two individuals on security cameras and possible cellphone conversations.
The accident is leading to more violence as groups in the anarchist stronghold neighborhood of Exarchia clashed with police at a major police station there that has seen a number of assaults against authorities.
(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report)
Greek Police Clash With Attackers in Athens Anarchist Stronghold
From The National Herald
April 13, 2025
ATHENS – A main police precinct in the Greek capital’s anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia was attacked by a group, leading to clashes on the streets, which occur occasionally in the area.
State broadcaster ERT reported that the violence erupted when the group allegedly attacked the local police precinct with Molotov cocktails and stones, common weapons used by anarchist groups. Police responded with tear gas and flashbang grenades.
The skirmish lasted for about an hour, during which 21 cars were set on fire.
According to the police, 72 individuals were detained, and one police officer was injured. A house and a store were also damaged in the unrest.
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