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Journalists from the Greek newspaper “Elevterotipia” met with the Bulgarian Union activist Konstantina Kuneva who is still placed at the tenth floor of the Athens hospital “Evangelizmos”.

She meets them calm. She is sitting at a sofa next to the window and initially they think she is looking at the people who are walking on the streets, the cars on the boulevard, the sky… but actually Konstantina only sees the glass which is placed only few centimeters away from her. 

Six months have passed since the secretary of the Union of the janitors and domestic assistants in Attica, the Bulgarian Konstantina Kuneva was attacked with acid near her home in the Athens neighborhood Petralona. Six nightmare months for her family since that day before Christmas when Konstantina cries for mercy to the unknown aggressor: “Please do not do this, who will I raise my child?”

The first days in the hospital are difficult. She is between the life and the death with serious damages of the organs, however she doesn’t give up. She fights like she does in all the past years and she survives. “I have skin not” she says. She knows there is a long way to go until she recovers, however she is filled with courage and her son is giving her strength. Now he can come and visit her in the hospital.

“I cannot retire any more because people need help. They need somebody to think about them and help them from inside, not from above.” Konstantinka tells: “after I testified before the police I called them few more times because I remembered some things, but nobody came to me to tell him.” She wants the investigation to continue and the people responsible for this to be found – both the moral and the actual authors of the crime. “You have to find the solution because these kinds of cases should not be covered. These kinds of people are dangerous and it is not necessary for others to suffer as well” she says.

Konstantina is sure that the people who splashed vitriol on her in the evening of December 23^rd 2008 are professionals and behind them are hiding others. Her lawyers for a very long time have been filing complaints that there are lapses in the police investigation.

However Kuneva is happy that the people treat her with love and that her name is mentioned often. “The authors of this will pay. They rot from inside. In every person there is the truth and it does not leave you alone when you know you have done something bad. Your conscience can not be peaceful” believes Konstantinka and she goes on with her thought: “Fear is never a motive. The mankind does not progress like this. The problems have to be solved”.

When it comes to the conditions of work and the rights of the janitors, Konstantinka believes that: “If this system with the companies does not change we will all lose. It depends on us whether this will change. The ones who owns the ones who take the responsibilities, those who take advantage they are all related in a chain. However we, the working ones have to win this battle. Years ago we have sent away the kings because they were very rich and were stealing from the people. Today the thieves are a lot more. Why should we live like this. There is no reason.”

Konstantinka is in Greece since 2001. She comes in the country because her child had a sick heart and had to be operated. In the beginning she faced a lot of difficulties – she didn’t speak the language, however she got informed on all the matters. She understood about the union of the janitors and she signed up for it and later on she became the secretary of the union.

What she has left from all of this? “What happened to me made me stronger and wiser. The wisdom is a power. When she came to visit me (the minister of employment of Greece – editor’s note) Mrs. Petralia I told her that in ancient times there were no schools they were learning wisdom. Now we have the best schools however the lessons in wisdom are not part of the syllabus.”

To support Konstantinka yesterday an organized demonstration was held by the Union of the janitors and domestic assistants and their main requirement was to be stopped the enslavement of the people working in the field of these services both from government and from private companies and people. Apart from this during the demonstration the people were cheering for the continuing of the investigation on the Konstantinka Kuneva case and also to have permanent and stable working places for all – Greeks and immigrants. The demonstration of the people who supported Kuneva was held under the motto: “Let’s fight for the things which are worth it”.