Interests above the law
The two illegal quarries still operating in Markopoulo, east of Athens, are more than a worsening scar on the Attica landscape; they amount to a black hole in Greece’s rule of law. The unrelenting operation of these sites is destroying the environment and, at the same time, harming the country’s democracy. Despite rulings by Greece’s highest administrative court, the quarries have not been shut down, an insolence that proves that private interests stand above legal order and the state does not have the power to enforce the law some 40 kilometers from the capital’s center. Skai television has sent a letter and the attached aerial footage (which shows workers, mining machines and trucks operating at the sites in question) to responsible officials, as well as to the judicial and police authorities, leaving no room for further excuses. No one can claim ignorance. The authorities will no longer be able to get away with negligence. If no measures are taken, officials ought to be charged with complicity and covering up a crime.
