I want something new, but I’m not the one to lead it

Maria Karystianou, who heads the relation of the families of the victims of the 2023 Tempe train accident, holds a placard reading, ‘I Have No Oxygen,’ during a monolithic rally demanding justness for the victims extracurricular Parliament astatine Syntagma Square successful Athens, connected January 26, 2025. [Yannis Kolesidis/EPA]

If it weren’t for Maria Karystianou, the 2023 Tempe railway catastrophe whitethorn not person still held arsenic precocious a presumption arsenic it does connected the governmental agenda. The parent of Marthi, 1 of the tragedy’s 57 victims, has go a symbol of the request for justice, with her each determination coming under scrutiny by person and foe alike. Something she said successful a caller television quality sparked speculation that she wanted to harness vexation with the “system” into a governmental force. As the rumors flew, analysts and pollsters began to take notice.

Speaking to Kathimerini, Karystianou dismisses the treatment arsenic an effort to property idiosyncratic motives to the conflict by the families of the Tempe clang victims for accountability. She admits that she dreams of “something caller and clean” successful Greece’s governmental landscape, but says she neither wants to pb it nor adjacent beryllium a portion of it, necessarily. “We’re simply crying retired for justice,” she says of the victims’ families, noting that the “obsession” with whether she is eyeing an progressive engagement successful authorities started with pro-government media seeking to undermine her campaign.

“I’m overmuch much acrophobic astir regularisation of instrumentality issues since losing my child,” says the 52-year-old pediatrician. “But I’m not going to beryllium putting something together; I don’t person clip for something similar that. But, similar a large portion of society, I bash want to spot something new. I beryllium to the 25%,” she says, referring to some nationalist sentiment polls which person recovered that a 4th of respondents would see supporting a caller question involving her. “If this happening I imagination of does emerge, something caller with vision and a plan, why shouldn’t I welcome it, without needfully being a portion of it? Something that won’t alteration on the way and transform into something else.”

Awareness campaign

Karystianou and different victims’ relatives person been traveling astir the state speaking to radical astir their cause. She says the intent of the run is to rise nationalist consciousness of the issues astatine stake and to marque sure the lawsuit isn’t forgotten. “I can’t ideate having to enactment up with a governmental system similar this 1 overmuch longer. Society is calling retired for something that the existing governmental system cannot adjacent sense, overmuch little satisfy,” she says.

Karystianou notes that nary of the victims’ relatives wants the trial implicit the catastrophe to statesman with an incomplete lawsuit record conscionable for the involvement of starting. In fact, 74 relatives person petitioned the appeals authoritative not to telephone an extremity to the investigative process due to the fact that they judge that important grounds and witness testimonies are still missing.

“Both the victims’ families and society are behaving similar governmental beings, calling retired injustice and rot wherever we spot it. That is our prerogative and it doesn’t person to mean thing much than that,” she notes.

The support network

A nationwide web of radical from divers κοινωνικά and governmental backgrounds has been created astir the relation of the Tempe victims’ relatives, which supports and occasionally assists its campaigns. Especially since the tours began, the messages of support person been pouring in, on with encouragement for a governmental movement. But calls person besides been rolling successful to victims’ relatives – and particularly to Maria Karystianou – from MPs and different governmental officials whose careers are connected shaky crushed and who are pressing for a caller governmental enactment that could sorb them.

One of Karystianou’s closest associates is her lawyer, Maria Gratsia, who ran for Athens’ First District successful the 2023 elections with the ultra-Orthodox nationalist Niki, coming 2nd lone to enactment president Dimitris Natsios – the enactment didn’t win a spot successful the territory aft all. Like Gratsia, Karystianou is very religious. In the meantime, her narration with the caput of the Course of Freedom party, Zoe Konstantopoulou, has each but collapsed. Also a lawyer, Konstantopoulou remains actively progressive successful the Tempe case, representing hunger striker Panos Ruci. 

Other radical successful Karystianou’s adjacent ellipse of trust see Nikos Passas, a prof of transgression justness astatine Northeastern University successful Boston, who often speaks astir the Tempe contented successful the Greek media. During her visits to Athens, she relies a batch connected Nikos Skiadas, a erstwhile president of the weightlifting federation. Lawyer Nikos Karachalios, a erstwhile strategic communications advisor to New Democracy, is besides portion of her interior circle, while she has besides maintained a adjacent narration with SYRIZA MEP Kostas Arvanitis, who raised the contented successful the European Parliament from the very beginning. Just past week, successful fact, it was decided that a delegation from the European Parliament’s Committee connected Petitions (PETI) will beryllium sent to Athens successful 2026 to analyse the case.