Greece

“I am really worried that this sentence will prohibit other journalists from writing freely and force them to censorship themselves,” journalist Stratis Balaskas says.

The aim of the charter is to discourage and denounce climates of intolerance, guarantee the right to freedom of expression and press freedom and the rights of refugees and provide journalists with conditions of voluntary commitment in performing their duties.

Demitrios Perros was severely attacked by unknown assailants on 4 February while covering a protest rally organized by public and private sector worker confederations.

Statistics kept by the Hellenic Photojournalists’ Union indicate that just one of 16 incidents of police aggression against photojournalists between 2010 and 2014 has resulted in legal consequences.

The proposed changes would scrap the law’s minimum limit for compensation in defamation cases and institute a mandatory 20-day pre-trial period during which the impugned media outlet would have the opportunity to publish a retraction.

A court in Athens on March 30 found Kostas Vaxevanis guilty of criminally defaming a well-known Greek businessman in his magazine, HotDoc, which described Vgenopoulos’s alleged role in the 2012-2013 Cyprus financial crisis.

Members of Greek parliament should amend the draft to include measures to combat racist violence and protect free speech, Human Rights Watch said on 2 September 2014.

On 11 June 2014, journalists across Greece will hold a four-hour work stoppage as a reminder to the government that it has failed to fulfil its promise to restore an independent public broadcaster for the Greek public.

High school students were recently interrogated by police after having peacefully occupied Keratsini’s 2nd High School in October. Those taken in for questioning were asked about their own and their teachers’ political preferences, especially those who had been striking against public job cuts and forced transfers.

On Saturday 1 February, two protests, one from anti-fascists and anarchists, and one from Golden Dawn, were planned at different locations in the centre of Athens. While there was no police intervention at the Golden Dawn rally, riot police dispersed protesters at the anti-fascist rally using stun grenades and tear gas.

Despite government assurances that NERIT will be a “Greek BBC”, the IFJ/EFJ believe that the new station’s minimal number of staff will mean it will not have the resources to be an independent, pluralistic and quality-focused body. Instead, it is likely to be an Athens-based organisation that is unable to focus on other regions in Greece.

As Greece prepares to take on the presidency of the Council of the European Union on January 1, the country continues to grapple with the free expression fallout from its financial crisis.

On 9 December, supporters of the far-right Golden Dawn party allegedly beat a journalist and cameraman from Star TV as they reported on an event in a suburb of Athens. This was not the first incident in Greece in which supporters of the Golden Dawn party have allegedly threatened or attacked journalists.

In its analysis of Greece’s draft anti-racism law, Human Rights Watch notes that while imposing sanctions for direct incitement to violence is legitimate, speech that falls short of incitement to violence – including denial of genocide and war crimes – should not be criminalized.

Kostas Vaxevanis, the Greek investigative journalist who published the infamous “Lagarde list” of 2,000 Greek citizens holding Swiss bank accounts, was acquitted of charges of privacy breaches on 27 November 2013.

Over the last few months, sacked journalists from ERT, which was shut down government in June, had been operating from their old headquarters via satellite and over the internet, demanding the re-opening of the broadcaster. The government had described their decision to stay in the building as illegal.