(GHM/IFEX) – The following is a 16 November 2003 GHM press release: TOPIC: APPEAL TO CONDEMN INSTITUTIONALIZED HOMOPHOBIA IN GREECE Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) condemns the 12 November ruling of Greece’s parliament-appointed National Radio and Television Council (ESR), which imposed a 100,000 euro fine on private television station Mega Channel for showing two young men […]
(GHM/IFEX) – The following is a 16 November 2003 GHM press release:
TOPIC: APPEAL TO CONDEMN INSTITUTIONALIZED HOMOPHOBIA IN GREECE
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) condemns the 12 November ruling of Greece’s parliament-appointed National Radio and Television Council (ESR), which imposed a 100,000 euro fine on private television station Mega Channel for showing two young men kissing in the popular late-night (22:30-23:30 on Mondays) series “Close your eyes”. The television council, in the words of its president Ioannis Laskaridis, considered the kissing scene to be “vulgar and unacceptable, . . . it could damage young people by making them too familiar with vulgarity. [Kissing men] is not a usual phenomenon – it is a particularity outside life’s reproductive process.”
Indicative of the prevailing climate in Greek media is the fact that even the media that rushed to criticize the ESR for its ruling, some calling it an act of censorship or hypocritical, stopped short of showing the kissing scene. This included not only television stations but also print media, which are not under the authority of the ESR.
Moreover, on 14 November, when gay, lesbian, transsexual and transvestite groups staged the second ever -and the first since the mid-1970s- public rally to protest the ruling, by kissing in front of the ESR offices, Greek private television stations referred to the protest and showed the protesters, but did not show them kissing. In addition, on 15 and 16 November, only two dailies reported on the protest. On 16 November, “Apogevmatini” published a picture but not of protesters kissing. On 15 November, only the English edition of “Kathimerini” (inserted in the “International Herald Tribune”) published a picture of the protesters kissing, while the main Greek edition of “Kathimerini” did not cover the story.
GHM joins the Greek gay, lesbian, transsexual and transvestite community in calling for an immediate repeal of the ruling and a recall of the homophobic ESR.
