Persistent Harsh Persecution of Journalists in Greece

AIM Athens, 29 September, 1998

Greek Minister of Justice Evangelos Yannopoulos is perhaps the most colorful member of the Greek cabinet. Although a close ally to the formally modernist Prime Minister Costas Simitis, he has probably the most populist discourse of any leading politician in that country. This is why, when without portofolio, he -a former chair of the Athens Bar Association- has a talk show in the most populist of the country's ten major television channels, Channel 5. But even when he is a cabinet member, he frequently behaves with the impulse of the commentator. For example, he had no problem calling Monica Lewinsky a slut and Kenneth Starr a fag after the broadcasting of the Clinton testimony to the Grand Jury.

No wonder than that, when he heard unpleasant comments for him in a radio station, on the way to his office, in the morning of 18 August 1998, he decided he had enough! So, he hurriedly summoned the journalists to announce his intention to introduce an additional paragraph to articles 361 (on insult) and 362 (on defamation) of the Greek Penal Code, as follows: "A newscaster or broadcaster of a television or radio station who broadcasts, reads or allows the broadcasting of messages with insulting or defamatory content is punishable with imprisonment of at least two years. The supervising Director of the employee, who gave the order for the broadcasting or reading of that message or allowed its broadcasting is punished as instigating principal or secondary accessory depending on the case." He added that the prosecution of such cases will be at the discretion of the public prosecutors without requiring prior complaint by the persons allegedly offended. Moreover, he said he was also considering introducing fines up to 5,000,000 drs. (US$17,000) for such "crimes;" and compelling the electronic media to broadcast full identity data of all individuals whose messages will be broadcasted. Yannopoulos then announced that he will bring charges for aggravated defamation against the right wing newspaper "Eleftheros Typos" for an editorial of 17 August 1998.

There were many negative reactions against Yannopoulos' statements by opposition parties, journalists' unions, and almost all newspapers, as well as appeals to the Prime Minister to dissociate the government from the undemocratic initiative. However, on 24 August 1998, the government spokesman declared that the proposed amendment is under consideration by the government. He made a similar statement a few weeks later, despite the generalized condemnation of the proposed amendments by many NGOs including Article 19, and the International Helsinki Federation.

In their statements, most of these NGOs also mentioned that Greece is the only West European country where, with the existing legislation, journalists can be and are prosecuted and convicted by criminal courts for libel, instead of referring these matters to civil courts. In the following weeks, the Greek courts set out to prove the allegations correct and demonstrate that, in the self-styled "cradle of democracy," people can end up in jail for having held in public unpleasant opinions (only in very few cases these opinions are really slanderous).

On 3 September, Giorgos Kondyloudis, journalist and publisher of "Eolika Nea", a daily on the island of Mytilini (also known as Lesbos), was convicted by a three-member Misdemeanor Court to 8 months in prison for insulting deputy Franklinos Papadelis. His crime? He merely published, on 16 June 1997, a letter to the editor, which called the deputy's views "childish" and "politicians [in general, not the deputy] unworthy, who disgust people." On the basis of Greek case law, eight months for insult is an unusually stiff sentence.

The same day, Yannis Tzoumas, journalist and publisher of "Alithia", a daily on the adjacent island of Chios, was convicted to four months' imprisonment for defamation. He was charged for an August 1997 article in which he was accused of defaming Minister Stavros Soumakis. Initially, he was charged with aggravated defamation for having claimed the minister, visiting Chios, was staying at the house of a ship owner who was under investigation; the journalist also claimed the minister had managed to get tickets for himself and his wife on the eve of the 16 August 1997 Olympic Airways flight. (This flight is always booked three months in advance.) The paper called him "minister of the ship owners ... who sunbathes at the villas of the ship owners." During the trial, the facts were confirmed as accurate; nevertheless, the court considered that the "harsh style" of the article consisted an act of defamation.

On 17 September 1998, journalist Makis Triantafyllopoulos was convicted and given a suspended sentence of eight months for the defamation of Minister of Justice Evangelos Yannopoulos, in an article in the daily "Kalimera" in January 1998. In the article, he had argued that the minister was interfering with justice in a case implicating the governor of the Social Security Fund, Gregory Solomos, to seek favorable treatment of the latter. The journalist based his argument on a note of Solomos addressed personally to Yannopoulos implicitly asking for an interference of the latter with the judges. The note was proved authentic during the proceedings but, the minister having argued he had never seen it, the court considered the article defamatory.

Finally, on 21 September 1998, a three-member Misdemeanor Court of Salonica sentenced "Avriani" newspaper publisher George Kouris, editor George Tsiroyannis and journalist Stelios Vorinas to 4 years and 11 months of prison. They were convicted for aggravated defamation and insult of Yannis Raptopoulos, owner of "Express Service," a roadside assistance company; Raptopoulos also owns the Salonica newspapers "Makedonia" and "Thessaloniki", while Kouris owns the rival newspaper "Nea Makedonia". The incriminating articles were published on 31 December 1997, 2 January 1998 and 3 January 1998. This was probably the only case that one may argue that the content of the articles was libelous. Nevertheless, the sentence was extremely harsh by any standards.

All journalists appealed and, thus, their sentences were suspended pending appeal, which is expected to be heard in early 1999 for all of them. This is no reason for satisfaction though. This wave of convictions of journalists indicates that the courts have a mentality that public officials must be protected from libel to such extent that they in fact make criticism of their action perilous for the media. Even if Yannopoulos= =92 amendments are withdrawn in the future, they have clearly been perceived by the courts as a signal to be very severe with the media. Regrettably, the latters' unions have limited their protest to the proposed amendments and neither now nor ever in the past have they voiced criticism of the fact that prison sentences are given to their members for libel, maybe because of the quick prescription of these crimes before the sentences become irrevocable. The only organizations that have repeatedly protested these convictions are the international freedom of expression groups like Article 19, Reporters Sans Frontieres, World Press Freedom Committee, and others: as for their protests, they are given very limited coverage in the Greek media.

Panayote Elias Dimitras