[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: IHF/GHM: Open Letter to Greek Minister of Justice on Judicial System's Lack of Will to Deal with Incitement to Hatred and Discrimination

[AAlibali]

--- In balkanhr at yahoogroups.com, Greek Helsinki Monitor <office at g...> wrote:

GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR (GHM)
Address: P.O. Box 60820, 15304 Glyka Nera
Telephone: (+30) 210.347.22.59. Fax: (+30) 210.601.87.60
e-mail: office at g... website: 
<http://www.greekhelsinki.gr>http://www.greekhelsinki.gr
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 


OPEN LETTER TO GREEK MINISTER OF JUSTICE ON JUDICIAL SYSTEM'S LACK OF WILL 
TO DEAL WITH INCITEMENT TO HATRED AND DISCRIMINATION

His Excellency
Mr. Filippos Petsalnikos
Minister of Justice
Ministry of Justice
Mesogeion 96
GR  115 27 Athens, Greece
Fax: +30 210 775 58 35


                                                         Vienna and Athens, 
4 September 2003


Your Excellency,

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) and its member 
organization Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) wish to express their deep 
concern about the failure of the Greek judicial system to effectively 
litigate clear cases of hate speech, punishable under Greek law and 
international conventions to which Greece is a party.

We are grateful for your readiness to discuss several human rights related 
problems in Greece with GHM. We also appreciate the recent appropriate 
measures within the powers of your Ministry, which you have taken to avoid 
miscarriages of justice, which might lead to impunity for human rights 
abuses. We also welcome the positive stand that the new Greek Ombudsman, 
Professor George Kaminis, has taken towards an effective implementation of 
all legislation, which would guarantee the human rights of all individuals 
living in Greece.

Despite these positive attitudes among high-ranking authorities, there 
appears to be a serious failure of some members of the Greek judicial 
system to deal with incitement to hatred and discrimination punishable 
under Greek legislation, in particular under Law N° 927/1979 as amended by 
Law N° 1419/1984 and Law No 2910/2001.

In the past twelve months, seven cases against the publication of 
anti-Semitic, xenophobic or racist texts in the press have been filed by 
Greek Helsinki Monitor on the basis of the above-mentioned legislation. 
Regrettably, however, one of these cases has lapsed due to inactivity on 
the part of the prosecutors; one has ended up in acquittal despite 
overwhelming evidence that Greek law had been violated; and four are in the 
process of being quashed, again, despite overwhelming evidence of breaches 
of law: in two of them, a trial date of 26 September 2003 had first been 
set and then cancelled. A detailed memo on GHM's anti-racist litigation is 
attached (see 
http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/organizations/ghm/anti-racist_litigation.doc).

·       Two of the filed cases concern an openly anti-Semitic letter 
published in Eleftherotypia on 15 April 2002 and in Ta Nea on 16 April 
2002. We are shocked to learn that the indictment chamber recently quashed 
the first case after a date for the trial had already been set, and that 
the charges against Ta Nea are under consideration to be dropped. The 
defamatory letter read, among other things: "
It's a proven fact that Jews 
are untrustworthy and fickle. They infiltrate societies, first playing the 
poor souls to generate pity and, when the time comes, they'll grab you by 
the throat."

·       A court in Patras dismissed a case against the Patras neighbourhood 
associations, which in November 2001 had published a blatantly racist 
letter against Roma in local newspapers in June 2003.  The letter read: 
"Roma steal from the [non-Roma] resident's fields, they snatch what they 
can find from the yards of the homes. They loot our cemetery, they swear, 
they beat people, they ring our bells. They should be immediately evicted 
from the area; any postponement or delay in resolving the problem we face 
will lead to militant action from the residents."

·       In a further case a Greek prosecutor moved so slowly that no trial 
could be held against the publisher of a xenophobic letter because the 
statute of limitation had expired and the case lapsed. The case concerned a 
letter that was published on 26 January 2002 in the financial supplement 
Economicos Tachydromos of the daily To Vima. The letter read, for example: 
"Migrants, the scum who are being channelled into Greece. They have come 
just on a whim, to kill, rob and rape Greece."

·       In the case of two complaints filed against Ta Nea in which the 
paper continued, despite warnings, to publish want ads for homes for rent 
and sometimes for jobs that ended with the phrase "no foreigners," 
"foreigners excluded." One of the cases was quashed before a date for the 
trial was set, in the other the date for trial was set but the case went 
back to the prosecutor who recommended that the charges be dropped.

After a year of litigation, only one case -- a case against "Albanophobia" 
-- is still proceeding in the judicial system. The case was filed because 
of a letter published on 12 October 2002 in the financial weekly Ependytis 
(in its supplement Symbol) and read, among other things: "The 'terrible' 
situation exists in Greece because of the 'Albanian plague.' We should 
exhibit exemplary cruelty to those who break the law, in order for 
Albanians to respect us and the type of society we have managed to create."

The outcome of the above-mentioned cases appears to be a clear indication 
of the lack of will among some prosecutors and judges to hold trials or 
convict persons for statements that are openly racist, xenophobic or 
anti-Semitic -- and which are penalized by Greek law and international 
standards.

In light of the above information, the IHF and the GHM respectfully urge 
you to take all possible measures within your legal competence to ensure that:

·       All prosecutors and judges are provided with the necessary training 
and instructions to rigorously implement Greece's anti-racist legislation 
which is part of Greece's human rights obligations;

·       The four cases against Eleftherotypia and Ta Nea be reviewed by the 
Supreme Court and then referred to trial before most lapse in October 2003;

·       The case against neighbourhood associations be reviewed by the 
Supreme Court and then referred to an Appeals Trial;

·       An investigation be launched into the slow judicial procedure in 
the To Vima case that led it to lapse before any ruling or trial and 
sanctions be imposed against those held responsible;

·       The pace of judicial proceedings concerning the press, which have 
an eighteen-month statute of limitation period, will be accelerated in 
order to ascertain that no litigations will lapse solely on the ground that 
the statute of limitation has expired as a result of inactivity by 
prosecutors or other judicial personnel;

·       The new EU Race Equality Directive be transposed into national law, 
worded in a way that would effectively exclude that such cases may not be 
tried, and taking into consideration the related recommendations of the 
Greek National Commission for Human Rights;

·       Greece makes the declaration under Article 14 of the International 
Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 
(ICERD) it had pledged to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial 
Discrimination (CERD) in March 2001, so that individual or group complaints 
could be lodged to CERD (Greece and the UK are the only EU members who have 
not made such declaration to date);

·       Make sure that the EU Race Equality Directive will guide Greek 
jurisprudence, along with jurisprudence of the Committee on the Elimination 
of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and recommendations of the European 
Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recommendations; and that 
Greek courts, when presented with arguments based on international 
conventions ratified by Greece, include them in their deliberations and 
explanations of their rulings, rather than ignoring them as in the cases 
mentioned herein


Yours respectfully,

Aaron Rhodes                                    Panayote Dimitras
Executive Director, IHF                         Spokesperson, GHM


Cc:
EUMC
OSCE Delegations
CoE
UN

Contact address:
Aaron Rhodes, IHF Executive Director, +43-1-408 88 22 or +43-676-635 66 12, 
<mailto:office at i...>office at i...
Panayote Dmitras, Spokesperson, Greek Helsinki Monitor, +30-6944431941, 
<mailto:office at g...>office at g...

____________________________________________________

Internet Addresses: Balkan Human Rights Web Pages: 
<http://www.greekhelsinki.gr>http://www.greekhelsinki.gr
The Balkan Human Rights 
List: 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanhr>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanhr
The Greek Human Rights List: 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greekhr>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greekhr
Center of Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe - Southeast 
Europe: <http://www.cedime.net>http://www.cedime.net
GHM Board: Kevin Boyle, Panayote Dimitras, Orestis Georgiadis, Dimitrina 
Petrova, Gregory Vallianatos.
International Advisory Committee: Savvas Agouridis, Teuta Arifi, Ivo Banac, 
Vladimir Bilandzic, Marcel Courthiade, Loring Danforth, Fernand de 
Varennes, Victor-Yves Ghebali, Henri Giordan, Krassimir Kanev, Will 
Kymlicka, Magda Opalski, Theodore S. Orlin, Dimitrina Petrova, Alan 
Phillips, Aaron Rhodes, Vladimir Solonari, Patrick Thornberry, Stefan 
Troebst, Boris Tsilevich, Tibor Varady, Marc Weller.
Affiliation to International Organizations: Consortium of Minority 
Resources (COMIR), Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), 
European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), International Freedom of Expression 
Exchange (IFEX), International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), 
Minority Rights Group International (MRGI), One World Net, South East 
Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), World Organization Against Torture (OMCT).
--- End forwarded message ---