Unionist spotlights root causes of violence

Constantina Kuneva, the Bulgarian migrant and trade union activist who was seriously injured in an acid attack in Petralona last December, has told Kathimerini that she feels no anger, only pity for her assailants, noting that society must fight the root causes that drive people to violence.

“We must not allow the creation of causes and circumstances that fuel violence,” the 43-year-old general secretary of the Attica cleaners’ association said in an interview, noting that unemployment and job insecurity may have motivated the assault.

Asked how she felt toward her attackers, she said she was not angry. “I wondered what problem that kid could have had to push him to resort to violence. How did he grow up?” She added that it was clear her assailant, who threw acid onto her face and down her throat, had been paid. “There is no doubt that he was put up to it,” she said.