Giorgos Florides commented on the farmers mobilizations, the blockades and the incidents in Heraklion, Crete, speaking to Open.

The Justice Minister argued that since Kyriakos Mitsotakis has invited the farmers for dialogue and they do not attend, they automatically show that they have no specific demands.

“They have taken to the streets and still haven’t come up with what they want,” he said, while accusing those who blocked the airport in Heraklion of not caring if a cancer patient dies.

Finally, he called all those who caused clashes “gangsters” and commenting on the prosecution’s intervention, he argued that those who protest within the framework of legality have nothing to fear.

“The government through the prime minister has called upon the farmers to enter into a dialogue in a coordinated manner with the problems of their concern. This invitation has so far not been accepted because from what we understand, they have taken to the streets and still have not come up with what their demands are.

People are paying a huge cost, the workers, the cancer patients who didn’t get their medication because the airport in Heraklion was blocked. It seems some of those who closed the airport don’t care if their fellow human beings will lose their lives,” George Florides said at first and continued:

So it would be good to get together, have a delegation to talk to the government and see what of what they are asking we can do. If the main demand is why the payments have been delayed, the answer is that the mobilizations started after the payments started. When it has been announced that 600 million more will be paid, it is disproportionate to the cost to the country of closing roads and airports because they were delayed for a month in getting the money. Every day, from every blockade, we hear something different.”

In his own estimation, “the biggest problem is the compensation they have to receive for the lost herds and animals killed due to smallpox.”

Regarding the prosecutor’s intervention and whether it triggers tension in an already tense atmosphere, the Minister of Justice noted that “mobilizations must be carried out under certain conditions. What does the Supreme Court prosecutor say? That wherever crimes are committed and police authorities can establish case files and prosecutors can prosecute. There is no threat. No one is threatened by those demonstrating within the framework of legality. It is a self-evident obligation to enforce the law. Only the gangsters are threatened, those who overturn police cars and chase police officers.”