PRESS
RELEASE
23
August 2013
Greece:
Abusive trial of University
Rector and anti-Nazi activist after Golden Dawn complaint!
Greek
Helsinki Monitor
(GHM) denounces as doubly abusive the trial scheduled to be held on
3 September 2013, before the Athens
Single-Member Misdemeanors Court,
of the former Rector
of the National
Technical University of Athens
Konstantinos
Moutzouris and of
the Secretary of the
Revolutionary Workers Party Sabetai Matsas.
The full charges translated in English by Greek
Helsinki Monitor follow.
The charges are doubly abusive. First and mostly because the
defendants are accused of having caused a breach of the peace through
the initiation of violent actions by participants in a publically
assembled crowd, but no such violent actions are described in the
charges and no dates of such alleged actions are mentioned. Secondly,
because the defendants are charged for texts uploaded on the
university’s and the party’s website which are political
discourse that, even if considered that they may “offend, shock or
disturb,” are protected by the case-law of the European
Court of Human Rights.
These texts may in no way be classified as incitement which
supposedly led to a breach of piece and to ensuing violence.
It
must be noted that the referral to trial was decided at the end of a
judicial investigation following a complaint filed
on 8 May 2009 by “neighborhood committees” of Athens which were
in effect front organizations of the neo-Nazi political party Golden
Dawn (XA), against
the defendants as well as another half-dozen anti-racist NGOs, three
political parties and the national secondary school teachers’
union, who were not referred to trial. This is why the prosecutor has
called as witnesses to support the prosecution’s charges the
current XA MP Elias
Panayotaros whose
parliamentary immunity has been lifted for a referral to trial on
charges of aggravate defamation in an unrelated case, a notorious XA
activist Themis
Skordeli whose
trial for stabbing three Afghans in September 2011 has been postponed
eight times (!), as well as four other well-known XA figures.
The
charges (translated in English by GHM)
The
first of the defendants, Konstantinos
Moutzouris, son of
Ioannis, in Athens, during the months of January 2009 and May 2009,
with more than one acts that constitute a continuation of the same
crime, intentionally provided any form of assistance to others (…)
prior to and during the commission of the wrongful act of article 192
of the Criminal Code, committed by unknown others. Namely, as Rector
of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), he allowed the
use of optic fibers that had been allocated to the above educational
institution by the National Research and Technology Network SA (EDET
AE), a subsidiary company of the Ministry of Development, by unknown
operators of the internet website “Athens Indymedia,” despite the
fact that it is forbidden to provide free services for purposes other
than educational or research. The [unknown operators], in their posts
on the above website during the above time periods, publically
provoked and agitated citizens to violent actions amongst themselves
and to mutual discord, thus committing a breach of the peace. [The
operators accomplished this] with the following web posts: “they
also called for a gathering in December, which for some reason they
canceled because we would have taken their scalps during those days”;
“the organizers should know that there’s a war going on, or
rather the civil war has never stopped”; “may God help to fuck
their Lady Mary”; “Cops and nazis [are part of] the same shop”;
“the class duty of the national traitor [is] fire again at the
unknown soldier”; “of course we’ll go down [there] to break
their heads”; “fascists, your grandparents are in the wells of
Meligala, you, for now go back to your holes.” All these phrases
were aimed at inciting the volition of others to [commit] a
particular illegal behavior by stirring the emotions and the
abhorrence of one group of citizens towards another, resulting in a
breach of the peace, through the initiation of violent actions with
unified forces against persons and objects by participants in a
publically assembled crowd.
The
second of the defendants, Sabetai
Matsas son of
Benakis, in the above place [Athens] and on May 8, 2009, he
publically and, in one way or another, publically provoked and
agitated citizens to violent actions amongst themselves and to mutual
discord, thus committing a breach of the peace. Specifically, as
Secretary of the Revolutionary Workers Party, he posted on the above
party’s website an announcement of the rally in which this party
was participating. The full content of the announcement is as
follows: “The audacity of the paramilitary gangs oversteps all
bounds. A few months after the assassination attempt against the
immigrant unionist Konstantina Kuneva, and through an ongoing pogrom
against immigrants by the state, the cutthroat paramilitary gangs are
threatening to make another appearance on Saturday afternoon in
central Athens. Let us prevent them with a decisive, mass presence in
an antifascist assembly of trade unions and political organizations
at 5 p.m. in Omonia Square! to rip off the hand they are laying on
our immigrant colleagues and on our democratic rights and freedoms!
As in December [when] we all rose up together, local and foreign
workers and youth, now, too, we will confront the paramilitary
bullies who have police protection. Throughout Europe, wherever the
snake’s egg is incubating again through the spasms of the systemic
crisis [there] is a mass antifascist action by workers, unemployed
youth, through unions [and] political organizations, [which] sets up
a barrier and protects rights and freedoms (…). The government and
the state have the primary responsibility for fomenting the fascist
phenomenon by cultivating a climate of social automatism, an
authoritarian police state, by attempting to declare the country a
state of emergency. At the same time the state has absolved
government officials involved in racist activities; it acquits
cutthroat paramilitaries; it promotes the formation of detainment
camps for immigrants. [We must] Close the offices of Chryssi Avgi
[Golden Dawn]; no tolerance for cutthroat paramilitaries. The people
don’t forget; [send] the fascists to the gallows.”
The
above text was aimed at inciting the volition of others to [commit] a
particular illegal behavior by stirring the emotions and the
abhorrence of one group of citizens towards another through
simplified generalizations, thus transgressing the boundaries of
legitimate protest and expression of opinion, and resulting in a
breach of the peace through the initiation of violent actions with
unified forces against persons and objects by participants in a
publically assembled crowd.
They are charged with the violation of articles 1, 14,
16, 17, 18 items e-d-b, 26 para. 1a, 27 para 1, 47 para 1, 51, 53,
79, 83, 192 of the Criminal Code.
