Kostas Vaxevanis won the 2013 Index on Censorship Journalism award for his investigative journalism through his work on the magazine Hot Doc. On 30 March 2015 he was convicted of criminal defamation for his reporting on banking irregularities in Greece and given a 26 month suspended sentence.
The justice system of Greece is often compared to a very thin fishing net, which catches the small fish, but which allows the bigger, stronger fish to break free.
It is a widely-held belief in Greece that there is a lack of justice administered by the country’s judicial system, and this belief is confirmed if one looks at recent history.
None of the major scandals of recent years — ranging from that of the Athens Stock Exchange to the scandal involving judges who conspired in the rigging of court cases — resulted in any guilty verdicts.
A few days ago, the Greek justice system sentenced former finance minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou to a mere 12 months’ imprisonment for his removal of names from the so-called Lagarde List of alleged Greek tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts, while he was not convicted for the most serious charges against him, namely, his inaction with regard to the individuals named on the list. However, this paradoxical situation, in which the Greek justice system charged and attempted to prosecute me on two occasions over the publication of the Lagarde List but did not sentence the government minister who concealed it, does not stop here. At the same time that a Greek court issued a paltry 12 month prison sentence to Papakonstantinou, a different court sentenced me to a 26 month suspended sentence, following charges that were filed against me by one of Greece’s major oligarchs, businessman Andreas Vgenopoulos.
Investigative reports which were publicised in the magazine which I publish, Hot Doc, revealed that Andreas Vgenopoulos had purchased the Cyprus-based Marfin Bank, which he then utilized in order to provide capitalization to other business interests of his and to those of his fellow oligarchs. According to the Cypriot government, Vgenpoulos’ actions with Marfin Bank was one of the main factors which resulted in the collapse of the country’s economy.
All of the reports which were published in Hot Doc were derived form official documents from the parliament of Cyprus, from Cypriot prosecutors, from Greek courts, and from the central banks of Greece and Cyprus. On the basis of documentation, anti-corruption prosecutors were obliged to launch an investigation regarding the financial activities of Vgenopoulos.
Even though this investigation is still in progress, along with a parallel investigation being conducted by Cypriot authorities, who have also issued a warrant for the freezing of Vgenopoulos’ assets totaling €2.4 billion, I was tried and sentenced by a Greek court on charges of libel. In court, I provided documentation from the vice prosecutor of the Greek Court of Appeals, who was requesting that Greek authorities investigate Vgenopoulos on allegations of bribery and money laundering based on evidence held by Cypriot authorities. Despite this, I was found guilty and issued a sentence that is greater than that issued by the Greek judicial system to a former Greek government minister, Giorgos Papakonstantinou.
In contrast to the standards of European law and European court decisions, which have made it clear that journalists are obligated to maintain a critical stance and, often, a strong and aggressive tone towards public figures, the Greek court which tried me concocted “malicious intent” on my part. Indeed, it is notable that the prosecutor, who was the same individual which had requested that I be sentenced for my revelation of the Lagarde List, on the basis of an unprecedented assertion: that I am “a very good journalist”, which means that my actions were undertaken “with malicious intent, and not out of ignorance”. This is unprecedented in global legal history.
Following my sentencing, numerous international organizations and actors responded, including the OSCE and the International Federation of Journalists, but once again, the only reaction in Greece was a guilty silence. At the present time, I am personally facing, along with Hot Doc magazine, no less than 42 different criminal cases and lawsuits. These are charges filed by politicians and oligarchs, whom we have investigated as part of our journalistic responsibilities. None of these individuals have officially responded to any of our revelations, as public figures are obliged to do.
Instead, they have resorted to legal means while attempting to influence public opinion by saying that they “will punish the slanderer in court”. In this way, they avoid responding to the revelations made against them and employ the justice system in their favour, to hold journalists hostage. It should be noted that Hot Doc’s legal bills for all of these different cases have surpassed €100,000.
The ultimate aim of this coordinated effort of charges and lawsuits against me and my magazine is to force us to reach a settlement, or to otherwise lead to our economic obliteration. It is rare for a journalist to challenge a coordinated and corrupt system, which also holds influence over specific individuals within the legal system, who then hold the power to issue specific sentences and decisions upon request.
Meanwhile, freedom of the press is rapidly being transformed into an altar upon which everyone pretends to worship, but which contains many skeletons within.
Unfortunately, the same is true of justice in Greece as well, resulting in a system where even honest justices often operate in fear of displeasing a government minister or major business figure, who has the power to file charges against them and destroy them.
When former defense minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos was arrested, his personal effects included notes on coordinated actions he would undertake with business figures, in order to destroy prosecutors who were continuing investigations against him. The justice system, in turn, did not have the courage to further examine this and to investigate those who plotting to kill their fellow prosecutors, instead allowing these crucial pieces of evidence to get “lost” in the mountains of paperwork relating to this case.
In this most blatant of manners, judges and prosecutors who depart from the judicial branch in Greece later become legal consultants to the same business figures which, until recently, they held a responsibility to investigate and prosecute. And this convoluted web of corruption and injustice is veiled behind a legal system which issues harsh punishments for charges such as that of libel. This legal system arrests and prosecutes “slanderers”, but, God forbid, never any major fraudsters or corrupt politicians. The very concept of an independent judiciary is devalued on a daily basis in Greece, in the eyes of justice and common sense. If one asks judicial professionals to tell you about justice, they can refer you to a whole range of laws, but to far fewer instances of true justice being served or public figures having been imprisoned.
Marilena Katsimi, journalist and general secretary of Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers (ESIEA)
Freedom of information and media’s role as a “watchdog” has deteriorated in Greece over the past six to seven years, as a result of the economic crisis and the fiscal agreements signed by the Greek government.
Marilena Katsimi, journalist and general secretary of Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers (ESIEA) — the largest journalist union in the country — was targeted in October 2012 for commenting on air about the response by Nikos Dendias, ex minister of public order, to an article published in the Guardian. The article mentioned allegations of police brutality against protesters.
Katsimi with her colleague Kostas Arvanitis were suspended for voicing mild criticism, sparking reactions in the journalistic community and on social media.
Index on Censorship spoke with Katsimi about how censorship is exercised in Greece, and to what extent journalists are allowed to report on social struggles in the country.
Index: How would you describe the media censorship in Greece in recent years?
Katsimi: Listen, I want to be clear. There was always censorship in most of mainstream media in Greece (TV, newspapers, radio). It appeared mainly with the form of self-censorship; we all knew for whom we were working for and what we were “supposed” to say or to report.
However, as a reporter for the international news desk of ERT (Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation), the ex state-owned broadcaster, I have experienced a high degree of freedom in reporting. I can’t recall any incident of being targeted at my time there, even when I took a firm stand on certain news reports.
When we were working for the morning news magazine, together with my colleague Kostas Arvanitis, I tried to be fair and balanced according to the journalistic principles a public broadcaster should adhere to: objectivity, plurality etc. In this context, I managed to speak my personal opinion several times without being censored.
However, since the fiscal agreements between the Greek government and the troika and the austerity measures that followed up, we clearly saw that much was about to change.
Initially, the duration of the broadcast was cut by two hours with no convincing explanation. Later on, we were suspended because we commented on the response of Nikos Dendias, ex minister of Public Order, to an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian.
And then came the closure of ERT. In my opinion, it was a move by a suppressive regime that wanted to manipulate public opinion and exclude any opposition voice.
Index: Could you give us some other examples of censorship?
Katsimi: As a general secretary of ESIEA, Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers, I am responsible for the new members that join the Union.
While discussing censorship issues with the 70 new members about to register in ESIEA, I was informed that “censorship pressure was unbearable”. Editors-in-chief, media executives and other managerial staff told journalists in an overt way that “this is the proper way” of reporting while expecting from them “a certain political twist” in stories.
Let me give you another example, the one of privately-owned ANT1 TV. On the eve of the Euro elections in May, the main news bulletin of the station reported unsubstantiated information on opposition party SYRIZA’s alleged internal disagreements about getting out the vote from Golden Dawn (neo-nazi party) sympathisers! At the same time, the bulletin overemphasised that a possible outcome in favour of SYRIZA would destabilise the country and it would be a serious political accident.
After some contacts I made with journalists from privately owned ANT1 TV, I was told that there was a straightforward message on how to “report” the news and “shape” these stories. However, there has not been a single official complaint because many fear of losing their job.
For years, in privately owned media, journalists struggled to express their own voice and criticism through their reports — but now things have gotten much worse.
Index: Can you say something about the conditions in the newspaper sector? It seems that censorship comes always with a great loss of jobs.
Katsimi: Yes, this is true, up to a certain point. From 2005 until 2012 the newspapers’ sales numbers declined by 50% — consequently, there was a great loss of jobs. According to data regarding ESIEA members, the number of unemployed journalists from 2009-2014 is 749 while from 2003-2008 the same number was 69.
Let me say that as a union we do our best so that nobody stays unemployed, however, we have to face this grim reality in the media sector. In consultation with journalists’ assemblies and their representatives we try to push employers to pay on time and pay back compensation that they owe to media workers.
Because of the economic stalemate, there is a huge difficulty for most of the media to take loans from banks and continue to be viable. This in turn, functions as an excuse for media owners to put all sorts of pressure on journalists. They are often being threatened with layoffs in case they refuse a salary reduction; and bear in mind that those still with a job have already seen their salary vanish.
At the moment 400 journalists — members of ESIEA have already contacted our legal department to exercise their right of labor lien. All these cases refer to the three years between 2011-2014.
Index: Let’s get back to content issues. How would you describe media reporting on the major social and political problems in the two years before the EU parliamentary elections in May?
Katsimi: I think that news criteria in Greece vary according to the interests of the particular media outlet. For years, there were hardly any “quality” papers which tried to criticise government policies in an honest and healthy manner. At the same time there were plenty of “tabloids” which reported on the basis of populism and sentimentalism.
However, in my opinion, mainstream media and especially those that supported government policies without doubts or second thoughts, are the ones that did not give space to the social struggles in the form of strikes, anti-fascist rallies, demonstrations and confrontations with the police.
When it came to major news stories like the mining conflict in Skouries, Northern Greece, most of the media failed to report the amount of dissent and the size of the demonstrations that took place in that area and in other big cities. The story of Skouries was by all means a “scoop” of citizen, grass-roots journalism — it rang a “bell” to those who still carried on with a “journalistic consciousness”.
Another example is the Golden Dawn case. Not until international organisations and media outlets shed a light on the role of the neo-nazis, did mainstream media “discover” the phenomenon and attempt to report on it.
I’ d like to add that several social issues like the right to citizenship or human rights abuses against immigrants, asylum seekers and other minorities, were not reported at all or they were downplayed by “right wing” newspapers.
Index: So, what about the future?
Katsimi: After the public broadcaster’s shutdown and the launch of the new state-run broadcaster NERIT, all I see is that the government succeeded in suppressing alternative opinions and controlling, more than ever, public broadcasting.
On the other hand, there is still hope in citizen journalism and in new media collectives that are not bound to big economic interests and are free to report on social issues mainstream media neglect.
Eurovision contestant Teo, in the music video for this year’s Belarusian entry Cheesecake (Image: Yury Dobrov/YouTube)
If you want a Eurovision of the future, imagine a faux-dubstep bassline dropping on a human falsetto, forever. That was how it felt watching YouTube footage of this year’s entrants in the continent’s greatest song-and-dance-spectacle.
The Eurovision Song Contest, born of the same hope for the future and fear of the past as the European Union, is approaching its 50th year. And strangely, it’s doing quite well. In spite of fears that the competition would end up as an annual carve up between former Soviet states, recent years have in fact seen a fairly equal spread of winners throughout the member states of the European Broadcasting Union (who do not actually have to be in Europe; a fact often missed by anti-Zionists who somehow see a conspiracy in the fact that Israel is a regular entrant in the competition is that channels in countries such as Libya, Jordan and Morocco are also members of the EBU, and technically could enter if they wish. Morocco did, in 1980). Since 2000, the spread of winners between Western Europe, the former Soviet states, and the Balkans and Turkey have been pretty much even.
While some of the geopolitics will always be with us — Turkey and Azerbaijan united in their hatred of Armenia, Cyprus and Greece douze-pointsing each other at every opportunity — the once-derided contest has in fact functioned as a genuine competition. Year in, year out, the best song in the competition tends to win, while the laziest entrants, not taking the event seriously as a songwriting competition (yes, we’re looking at you, Britain), tend to fall behind and then complain that Europe doesn’t “get” pop music.
The best songs and singers triumph, by and large. But Eurovision still does have a political edge.
Take Tuesday’s semi-final in Copenhagen. Russia’s entry, Shine, performed by the Tolmachevy Sisters and described by Popbitch as sounding like “almost every Eurovision song you’ve ever imagined” contained some unintentionally ominous lines:
Living on the edge / closer to the crime / cross the line a step at a time
Add an “a” to the end of that “crime”, and you’ve got the Kremlin’s current foreign policy neatly summed up in a single stanza.
I am not suggesting that the Tolmachevys were sent out to justify Putin’s expansionism. Nonetheless, the Copenhagen crowd were keen that Russia should know what the world thought of its foreign policy and domestic human rights record: as it was announced that Russia had made Saturday’s grand final, the arena erupted in jeering. The dedicated Eurovision fan is clearly not just a poppet living in a fantasy world of camp. They are engaged with the world, and particularly the regressive policies of countries such as Russia, Azerbaijan and Belarus, perhaps more so than your average European.
When Sweden’s Loreen won the competition in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, in 2012, she pledged to meet the country’s human rights activists. That same year, BBC commentator “Doctor Eurovision” (he actually is a doctor of Eurovision) made explicit references to Belarus’s disgraceful dictatorship, rather than simply giggle at the funny eastern Europeans.
This raises an interesting question about how we engage with dubious regimes.
Before the Baku Eurovision in 2012, there was some discussion over whether democratic countries should boycott the competition, sending a message to Aliyev’s regime.
“No,” Azerbaijani civil rights activists told Index on Censorship. “Let the world come and see Azerbaijan.” They felt that for most of the world, most of the time, they are citizens of a far away country of whom we know nothing. They wanted to take their chance while the world was looking. I think they got it right. As discussed last week, Azerbaijan is engaged in a massive international PR campaign, but to most people in the world since that Eurovision and the attention it raised for the country’s opposition, it has not been able to entirely disguise its atrocious record on free speech and other rights.
On Friday, the International Ice Hockey Federation’s world championship will open in Belarus. Though there was some discussion of boycotting that event, it has died down. Nonetheless, journalists from Europe and North America will be covering the event, and fans will travel too.
Belarus’s macho dictator Alexander Lukashenko is a keen ice hockey fan, and will be aiming to sweep up the glory of hosting a major international sporting event, not long after the country hosted the world track cycling championships in 2013.
Ice hockey fans and sports journalists are generally not the type of people who go in for Eurovision. But maybe they should try to take a leaf out of the Song Contest supporters book. Have a look at the country around them, learn a little about the politics, and spread the word about the side the dictators don’t want us to see.
Autocrats try to use these international competitions to control the world’s view of them. We should beat them at their own games.
Greek protesters voiced their opposition to further austerity measures on Wednesday 9 April as Greece returned to international finance markets. (Photo: Christos Syllas for Index on Censorship)In a televised address last Thursday, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras thanked the Greek people for the sacrifices they endured during the past four years as the country underwent the harshest austerity measures since emerging from World War II. While hailing the country’s return to the international finance markets after a four-year absence, the prime minister and the coalition government glossed over policies that have resulted in a negative environment for free expression — whether through protests or the press.
Along with the “world of labor” being constantly undervalued, the policies put in place are having a huge impact on the freedom of speech. In a more precise manner, the non-dominant anti-state and anti-government political discourse produced by certain political spaces such as the radical left and anarchists poses a serious threat to the government propaganda. Political dissidents are being targeted, arrested and systematically abused for protesting against the government. At the same time, press freedom is under attack when attempting to speak about the costly agreements with the troika. Also, recent struggles for education came face to face with police interference and student profiling.
The economic implications of the Greek austerity drive are falling mostly on the working class, who are losing hard won benefits without their unions taking a clear stand against the rollbacks. The government is currently legislating a new round of liberalization measures.
On 9 April, an anti-austerity strike was held in Athens with thousands of people rallying against government policies. Although the strike lacked the mass participation and intensity of past rallies, as in 2012, demonstrators managed to manifest their dissent against sweeping socio-econonic measures.
According to the latest data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority, Greece’s unemployment in January 2014 was 26.7%, up from 26.5% a year ago and down from 27.2% in December. The same figure back in January 2009 was at 8.9%. The economic downfall can be clearly seen at the unemployment rate among 15-24 years old and 25-34 years old: 56.8% and 35.5% respectively.
Workfare policies through voucher programmes, initially introduced as a government solution to unemployment, exploit the large reserve of unemployed while undermining the ability to collectively bargain working conditions and pay.
“It is a dead end. If you take a closer look today -a day of strike-, you will see that many coffee shops and sales shops are open. Austerity measures, up to now, seem to be effective in dividing working class people and overturn any social struggle. There’s still a long way to fight properly…”, a 29 year-old protester, who has been unemployed for two years, told Index on Censorship.
Human rights abuses against immigrant workers — the most undervalued part of workforce in Greece — confirm the agenda of a police state flirting with racism and xenophobia.
The dramatic escalation of refugee and migrants’ mistreatment, both by the state and the banned neo fascist party Golden Dawn is indicative. In a recent provocation some Golden Dawn followers organized an intimidating gathering outside the offices of Medecins du Monde, an NGO that provides medication and healthcare services to immigrants as well as Greeks.
However, mainstream media outlets have failed to report on the contradictions that arise from Golden Dawn’s background and relationships. Index on Censorship has thoroughly reported on the affinities of the right and the far-right political spectrum and has identified some key actors that connected ruling party New Democracy with Golden Dawn. One of them, was the former cabinet secretary Panayiotis Baltakos.
Baltakos was recently forced to resign over a leaked video, which showed him having a conversation with the spokesman of Golden Dawn Ilias Kasidiaris. In the video, Baltakos admitted that the government had to press judges to prosecute Golden Dawn’s former members of parliament.
It is worth noting that a year ago, Baltakos had allegedly said that cooperation between New Democracy and Golden Dawn in upcoming elections is “undesirable but not an unlikely possibility”.
The continuous flirting between the ruling New Deomocracy and the now-banned Golden Dawn either takes the form of a “relationship” or of a “conflict”. It is shaping the news agenda and it sets the tone ahead of the European and local elections in May.
In an e-mail interview that took place in January,Index asked Cas Mudde, assistant professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Georgia, in whose interest is the threat of the far-right is working.
“I would expect that the far right today wins mostly from mainstream right-wing parties – in many countries they won over the left-wing voters in the late-1980s/early-1990s. At the same time, they often attract many new and former non-voters, who would probably traditionally have gone to the center-left”.
Mudde also claims, among other things, “that European politicians use the alleged threat of a far right resurgence, backed by the economic crisis thesis, to push through illiberal policies”.
In this context, on 11 April, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Athens. Aside from the mainstream media’s enthusiasm for the return to financial markets, few read between the lines. Merkel’s visit was a sign of support for the Greek government’s austerity measures – despite what the Greek public thinks
Experts warn that even now that “the mood has changed”, the debt crisis and the consequent austerity measures do not necessarily come to an end.
