Vol. 73/No. 13      April 6, 2009

The protesters marched to the Greek parliament and then to the hospital where she is being treated, demanding that the authorities pursue Kouneva’s attackers. The protest was called by the Bulgarian Cultural Center, Union of African Women, Women’s Network of the Coalition of the Radical Left, Amnesty International—Women’s Rights Section, and others.

It was the second protest to demand that authorities find and prosecute the thugs. On January 22 more than 1,000 joined a protest organized by a number of trade union locals.

Last December, while on her way home, thugs attacked Kouneva. They pushed her face into a bucket of sulfuric acid and then forced her to drink it. She remains hospitalized in a coma after sustaining permanent damage to her eyes, esophagus, and other organs.

Kouneva is a janitor and general secretary of the Pan Attik Union of Janitors and Home Cleaners. She worked for the firm OIKOMET, which subcontracts cleaners for government facilities and private companies. At the time of her attack, Kouneva was working under a subcontract for the rail transit company in Athens.

According to a statement by Migrants Forum, an immigrants rights group, Kouneva was targeted for her efforts to organize immigrant and Greek workers in a common struggle. It said the attack was part of the "circumvention of basic labor rights in the field and a reprisal by the contractors due to the union activities of the victim.”

According to the Migrants Forum, Kouneva was organizing coworkers to refuse to sign receipts saying they were paid higher wages than what they had actually received, and to oppose the company’s pocketing of their Christmas bonus.

Janitors are mainly immigrant women workers. Companies take advantage of their status to underpay them and violate labor laws.

According to the daily Eleftherotypia, Kouneva's attorneys say the police have carried out an insufficient investigation and are instead concentrating their “investigation” on her immediate associates and amongst immigrants. The main opposition parties PASOK and Coalition of the Left have spoken out on Kouneva’s behalf.
 
 
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