It seems that we have not seen the best of it yet. After the disastrous fires of 2007 that burned to ashes more than 268.834 hectares of forest area and cost the life of 63 people – let alone livestock and wild animals – coupled with the recent arsons of 2009 that deprived Athens and its suburbs of the extremely few remaining forests in the prefecture of Attica – there is practically no source of fresh air left, as all the mountains rimming the basin of Athens are as dry as it gets – the Ministry for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works proceeds hastily with the construction of new motorways on Imittos. This is a mountain that has been burned several times in the past few decades and new neighborhoods have sprung up where forests once stood -initially “illegally”, but after a while the state always legalizes the constructions -, as real estate is one of the Greek state’s most lucrative sources of dirty money, let alone votes.

In an effort to protect the environment from the state’s criminal actions and prevent further degradation of living standards in the capital, the Initiative for Fighting Against the New Motorways & the New Presidential Decree on the Plundering of Imittos organized a protest on 22 September at Syntagma Sq. (right outside the Parliament) bearing banners with slogans such as “Hands off Imittos! We’re taking up battle positions” or “The only ‘way’ is RESISTANCE and SELF-ORGANISATION”.