2005 Greek Journalists Guilty of Defaming Vlach Language Activist

Greek Journalists Guilty of Defaming Vlach Language Activist

Saturday, 10 December

by Georgios N. Papadakis

Florina/Lerin -- Last Tuesday an Athens court found three Greek journalists guilty for 'revilement', a slightly lesser charge than libel under Greek law. They are the publisher Dimitris Rizos, director G. Bertsos and editor-in-chief K. Sarrikostas of the daily newspaper Adesmeftos Typos. It followed a successful lawsuit filed by vice president of EBLUL's Greek Member State Committee, native Vlach / Aromanian Sotiris Bletsas.

The initial charges against the three journalists were libel and revilement but because of a new law implemented in July 2005, libel was commuted to revilement.

Additionally, because the offending article was written in September 2004, therefore before July 2005, there was no custodial sentence for the defendants that would have led, in similar cases, to one year's imprisonment.

The anonymous newspaper article contained various libellous allegations against Bletsas, a well-known activist on linguistic diversity issues in Greece and abroad. He was characterized as a "pro-Skopjan agent who...provocatively spreads propaganda for non-existent, so-called minority languages in Greece ...and was convicted for it in the past".

Members of the Greek Parliament belonging to Nea Dimokratia (the ruling Conservative party) were present at court to defend Rizos, Bertsos and Sarrikostas. According to MP Katerina Papakosta's testimony, there was no evidence to prove that the allegations in the article were directed specifically against Mr. Bletsas.

Another parliamentarian, Vyron Polydoras claimed that he is in favour of protecting the Aromanian (Vlach) language, and had signed the 1333 Recommendation of the Council of Europe in 1997, but only as long as the language did not harm Greek national interests.

The third MP that testified, Evgenios Haitidis, is the one that initially brought Bletsas to court for distributing EBLUL leaflets in 1995.

Mr Bletsas was found innocent and has since filed a compensational lawsuit against Haitidis that will go to retrial in early 2007.

Right after the court's decision Mr Bletsas told Eurolang that even without fines it will be a "good lesson" for anybody that tries to defame minority rights activists in the future.

He also urged the Greek government to "co-operate with EBLUL in order to save and promote minority languages" that are threatened with extinction.

Minority languages in Greece include Aromanian (Vlach), Macedonian, Pomak, Arvanite, Romani and Turkish. Only Turkish is currently being taught at minority schools in western Thrace. (Eurolang (c) 2005)

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