{"id":1015,"date":"2015-04-28T13:04:07","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T11:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2022-11-28T17:42:41","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T15:42:41","slug":"the-trial-the-witnesses-and-the-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/media-en\/the-trial-the-witnesses-and-the-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"THE TRIAL, THE WITNESSES AND THE JOURNALISTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The events are well known among journalists\u2019 circles. Last Monday morning, as the<\/span><\/p>\n

trial of the 69 Golden Dawn defendants began at the Korydallos Court of Appeal for<\/span><\/p>\n

Felonies, the website of the Sunday newspaper \u201cProto Thema\u201d (\u03a0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf \u0398\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1)<\/span><\/p>\n

published the list of the 131 witnesses for the prosecution, together with their details<\/span><\/p>\n

and the particular issue on which they have been called to testify. The list was<\/span><\/p>\n

republished across a network of web media channels, first among which, the website<\/span><\/p>\n

of the (in)famous weekly newspaper \u201cStochos\u201d (\u03a3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2), Golden Dawn\u2019s media<\/span><\/p>\n

organ.<\/span><\/p>\n

With a carefully balanced statement, the Board of Directors of ESIEA (Journalists\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Union of Athens Daily Newspapers) stressed that \u201cthe publication of the names of<\/span><\/p>\n

witnesses \u2013 defenseless citizens or immigrants for the most part \u2013 though not illegal,<\/span><\/p>\n

might pose a threat to their person and expose them as targets of the assault division<\/span><\/p>\n

of this criminal organization as, unfortunately, the assaults on the very first day of the<\/span><\/p>\n

trial would seem to predict.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The statement led to an outraged reaction on behalf of the journalists of \u201cProto<\/span><\/p>\n

Thema,\u201d who turned against the Board of ESIEA, protesting that the statement was an<\/span><\/p>\n

attack on them and on their newspaper inspired by party or professional rivalry. Their<\/span><\/p>\n

argument rests on the fact that the names of the witnesses (including those of<\/span><\/p>\n

individuals who were not, in the end, called to testify) had already been published on<\/span><\/p>\n

the Civil Action website on March 13 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

The accusation was followed by a letter signed by 13 court correspondents protesting<\/span><\/p>\n

ESIEA\u2019s statement, again by reference to Civil Action\u2019s web posts, and underlining<\/span><\/p>\n

their contempt for \u201cany form of targeting, whoever its object may be and wherever it<\/span><\/p>\n

may take place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Given we have a long judicial process ahead of us, it seems an apposite move to clear<\/span><\/p>\n

things up from the offset. The efforts of those colleagues who published the witness\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

names to find cover by recourse to the Civil Action webpage have fallen flat. The<\/span><\/p>\n

specific post invoked has nothing to do with the disputed list.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the collegial solidarity demonstrated by other court correspondents: it is<\/span><\/p>\n

entirely understandable. But they did not pause to consider the significance of all that<\/span><\/p>\n

is at stake. Because the list published by \u201cProto Thema\u201d is everything but a simple<\/span><\/p>\n

transcription of the names of witnesses. In other words, they are misguided in<\/span><\/p>\n

thinking that the newspaper \u201cpublished the list of witnesses for the prosecution<\/span><\/p>\n

exactly as these were delivered to the audience of a public trial.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The published list includes details regarding the politics of the witnesses, labeling one<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201can anarchist,\u201d another \u201canti-establishment,\u201d without any indication regarding the<\/span><\/p>\n

source of this information or its relevance. And, typically: the Fyssas murder is<\/span><\/p>\n

referred to as the \u201cFyssas case,\u201d the attack on PAME (Workers Militant Front)<\/span><\/p>\n

transcribed as the \u201cscuffle in Perama,\u201d the attacks on petty vendors are demoted to<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cepisodes,\u201d while other attacks are characterized as \u201cminor skirmishes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

All these specifications betray the source of the list, as they emulate the line of the<\/span><\/p>\n

Nazi organization itself, which seeks to dismiss the charges levied against it by<\/span><\/p>\n

figuring them as random incidents and so to absolve its leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ethics<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course it is within the right of the Golden Dawn defendants and their lawyers to<\/span><\/p>\n

publicly make light of the charges under investigation. But what code of journalistic<\/span><\/p>\n

ethics could possibly permit the names of witnesses to be supplemented by such<\/span><\/p>\n

qualifications as \u201canarchist,\u201d or \u201canti-establishment\u201d or \u201cmember of an anarchist<\/span><\/p>\n

squat,\u201d even as the accusation itself speaks of \u201cfree social spaces\u201d and as the victims<\/span><\/p>\n

themselves claim no such properties?<\/span><\/p>\n

But the damage is done, which is why the much-contested post was removed from the<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cProto Thema\u201d webpage, an implicit admission of error.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is by no means the first time that this particular newspaper has<\/span><\/p>\n

shown itself to be the press organ of Golden Dawn propaganda. Its ridiculous<\/span><\/p>\n

reportage of \u201cgrandmas\u201d escorted to ATMs by Golden Dawners is famous, as are its<\/span><\/p>\n

plethora of reports on the \u201csocial work\u201d and \u201cmodern lifestyle\u201d of the organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the tactics adopted by the Nazi organization in order to rebuff the charges<\/span><\/p>\n

levied against it, its habit of featuring the home addresses of the plaintiffs and<\/span><\/p>\n

witnesses for the prosecution is telling. Court reporters themselves have first-hand<\/span><\/p>\n

experience of the conditions of terror surrounding witnesses and litigants generated by<\/span><\/p>\n

the organization each time it finds itself facing justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Journalists themselves number among the organization\u2019s primary targets. Nikos<\/span><\/p>\n

Michaloliakos\u2019 \u201cpolitical\u201d career began four decades ago with a similar attack: the<\/span><\/p>\n

savage lynching of journalist democrats by a neofascist group at the funeral of<\/span><\/p>\n

Evangelos Mallios, one of the military junta\u2019s archtorturers. Michaloliakos was<\/span><\/p>\n

arrested but never tried. The charges against him were dropped.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Golden Dawn\u2019s co-founder, Ioannis Perdikaris, Michaloliakos<\/span><\/p>\n

personally threw the well known journalist Nikos Kakaounakis into a lime pit around<\/span><\/p>\n

the same time. And of course, there have since been many trials of Golden Dawners\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

attempts to lynch \u201cundesirable\u201d journalists.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even those (few) journalists who flatter Golden Dawn in the hope that by gaining<\/span><\/p>\n

its favor they might become privy to some \u201cexclusive\u201d scoop, run the risk of being<\/span><\/p>\n

exposed by the organization itself. In his apologia, Michaloliakos exposed a known<\/span><\/p>\n

journalist as an informant for the organization who had, in September 2013, warned<\/span><\/p>\n

Golden Dawn of the upcoming arrests.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the early summer of 2014, during the last days of the pre-trial investigation, the<\/span><\/p>\n

Leader pointed out known journalists to his lawyer as possible witnesses for the<\/span><\/p>\n

defense, with the sole ostensible aim of exposing them and causing confusion. Given<\/span><\/p>\n

this, it appears that the first challenge now facing the media is to not give in to threats<\/span><\/p>\n

or to allow itself to be derailed by Golden Dawn\u2019s expansive propaganda organs.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EFSYN Journalists themselves number among the organization\u2019s primary targets. Nikos Michaloliakos\u2019 \u201cpolitical\u201d career began four decades ago with a similar attack: the savage lynching of journalist democrats by a neofascist group at the funeral of Evangelos Mallios, one of the military junta\u2019s archtorturers. Michaloliakos was arrested but never tried. The charges against him were dropped<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":808,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[53,70,34],"class_list":["post-1015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-en","tag-golden-dawn-party","tag-neofascism","tag-witnesses-attacked"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goldendawnwatch.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}