GREEK
HELSINKI MONITOR
(Greek National
Committee of the International Helsinki Federation)
& MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP
- GREECE
(Greek Affiliate of Minority Rights Group International)
P.O. Box 51393, GR-14510
Kifisia, Greece Tel. 30-1-620.01.20; Fax: 30-1-807.57.67; E-mail: office@greekhelsinki.gr
5/5/1999
TOPIC: JOURNALIST ATTACKED BY
JOURNALIST
The non-governmental organization Greek Helsinki
Monitor (GHM) condemns today's unprovoked attack by journalist Theodore Varikos against
his colleague Sisy Vovou in the offices of the state television station ERT. It calls upon
government spokesperson Dimitris Reppas (responsible for ERT matters for the government),
ERT administration, and the journalists and other related unions of the country and of ERT
to condemn this act, and, wherever within their jurisdiction, to undertake the prescribed
disciplinary action. Otherwise, silence would mean tolerance of, if not complicity with
this action.
According to the charges Sisy Vovou, who works in the
press office of ERT, brought before the ERT Board and the respective unions, Theodore
Varikos, a member of the Athens Journalists' Union (ESIEA), this morning assaulted
verbally and then violently Sisy Vovou because of his disagreement with her views on the
Yugoslav crisis, shouting at her "you Muslim" (an act and an expression that
reveal the nature of his own views). These charges were confirmed to GHM by the victim of
the attack.
We recall that, on 23 November 1998, GHM, consistent
with its principles to defend freedom of expression of all journalists, protested, with an
open letter to the then Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia, for the harassment by
a Resen court of Theodore Varikos. The latter, as a contributor to the daily
"Avghi," covered there, on 17 November, the trial of an ethnic Greek citizen of
that country. |