The image shows about a hundred people surrounding the house where the Attica Regional Governor Nikos Chardalias and his family does not constitute a political protest.
It constitutes a direct attempt at intimidation. And that is the first thing that must be made clear.
The perpetrators did not head toward the regional governor’s office, nor toward any institutional building of the Region. They chose his family home. They chose the neighborhood where his children and relatives live. They chose to bring the political confrontation to the doorstep of a home. This is a cowardly act that crosses every democratic line.
The attack was linked to the case of the refugee camp on Alexandras Avenue and the mobilization in support of hunger strikers.
However, the very claims upon which the targeting of the regional governor was based collapse when the actual facts are examined.
The Attica Region has presented a detailed regeneration plan, refuting theories about commercialization and the eviction of current residents. Prosfigika will not be turned into a venue for profiteering, nor will it be handed over to private interests. On the contrary, the plan calls for social housing and a guesthouse to accommodate caregivers of cancer patients at the “Agios Savvas” Hospital. This is an initiative with a clear social focus, which aims to resolve a problem that has remained unresolved for decades.
The reality is that the Prosfigika neighborhood has, in recent years, been transformed into an informal no-man’s-land of lawlessness. The state was absent, the rules were abolished, and arbitrariness was passed off as social policy. Anyone who dared to speak of restoring the rule of law was treated almost as an enemy.
Even more alarming is the silence of the political establishment. Condemning an attack on a family home should not depend on partisan sympathies or antipathies. And yet, most parties have chosen to turn a blind eye. The absence of a clear stance creates the impression that some consider such practices acceptable when the target is a political opponent.
Particularly deafening is the stance of the Mayor of Athens and PASOK. Their silence cannot go unnoticed. The constant effort to maintain ties with extremist circles and groups operating on the fringes of legality often leads to awkward evasions when a clear stance is required.
Democracy is not threatened by urban renewal projects or by public housing. It is threatened when a hundred people can gather outside a home to terrorize a family, and a segment of the political world chooses to look the other way. Tolerance of such practices is not neutrality. It is complicity.
