He also clarified that it is inconceivable to weigh those who fell on battlefields against the 57 people killed at Tempe for petty party political purposes, and that the question that should be asked is whether opposition parties agree to protect national monuments. “We will not take any a priori aggressive action, because the goal is not divisive,” said Pavlos Marinakis, emphasizing that “the goal is respect, securing respect for a sacred monument. From the moment this amendment is voted on by the representatives of the citizens, namely the MPs, Parliament, it will constitute state law and the application of the law is not a la carte”
Unknown Soldier: Government and opposition in battle positions
Meanwhile, PASOK, through its press spokesperson Kostas Tsoukalas, commenting on the government spokesperson’s statements, stressed that “with the sole aim of settling the government’s internal ministerial disputes, it chose again to divide the Greek people over the Unknown Soldier Monument by posing false dilemmas and attacking the parents of Tempe.” “The government is wasting its efforts if it thinks it will change the public agenda so we don’t discuss the economy, high prices, social inequalities,” Mr. Tsoukalas also noted. For its part, SYRIZA spoke of “Trump-inspired legislative initiatives” and accused the government of “wanting to take revenge for Panos Routsis’s great victory by banning parents from writing the names of their children who were criminally killed.”
SYRIZA’s announcement:
The government brings a legislative regulation to take revenge for Panos Routsis’s great victory, to ban the parents of victims from writing the names of their children, who were criminally killed. It falsely invokes respect for the Unknown Soldier monument. We remember how much the monument is respected by Mr. Mitsotakis himself, we remember the rallies for the Macedonia issue, where New Democracy and Golden Dawn gathered in Syntagma Square and part of the demonstrators tried to invade Parliament, desecrating the monument.
We warn them, we will stand by every citizen who will claim something so just and humane, like Panos Routsis, in the future. We warn them, we will be beside the parents and survivors when they write the names of the 57 again at that specific spot. Mr. Mitsotakis’s authoritarianism and arrogance have enraged all of society. His Trump-inspired legislative initiatives show his arrogance but also his conservatism.”
