Eurovision Yawns, Squats, and Scandals
Read Time:10 Minute, 51 Second
Greece’s government is proving most loyal to Tel Aviv. At least, this is what we understand from their stance towards Greece’s Eurovision participation, Satti, and also from the fact they are about to deport EU citizens whom the police arrested for participating in the Law School squat in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Not only one sound log was falsified, as in the Tempi train accident case. A new report claims Greece’s authorities have made a systematic and far-reaching effort to falsify evidence.
A report revealed Greece sent 250 containers with weapons to Ukraine. PM Mitsotakis had earlier refuted sending weapons to the country, and no agreement of such kind was passed by Parliament. FM Dendias denied the report and claimed they don’t send “directly” weapons, but they give obsolete weapons to the Czech Republic and the USA.
Athens’s alignment with Tel Aviv reaches new levels
Our previous newsletter described how the Greek government turned a yawn during the Eurovision almost into a national issue. It was Greece’s participant Marina Satti’s yawn when her Israeli counterpart was giving an interview.
It is now reported that the National Broadcaster ERT, the organizer of Greece’s participation in Eurovision (ERT still remains under the PM’s auspices), has cut Satti’s scheduled appearances on its shows. Whenever the Greek team returns to the country after the Eurovision contest, they appear on several shows of ERT TV. This time, they did not.
The reason is reportedly Satti’s yawning. ERT has decided to cancel her appearances “so that the singer would not make statements which could expose her, as it was certain that she would have to answer questions on the issue,” according to reports.
In relation to the yawning “incident,” there had also been rumors that ERT’s head Zoulas would resign, following the government’s dissatisfaction, as Satti was said to be his personal choice, despite the fact he knew where she stands, reports claimed. The ‘rumors’ was finally refuted, and Zoulas kept his position.
How about next time, choosing someone after making them sign a statement of political beliefs? The Greek junta was doing this, not very successfully with dissidents, but still.
Meanwhile, the first protests and squats in solidarity with the Palestinian people started this week in the Greek universities. The timing is explained by the fact that the Universities just opened some days ago after the Easter Holidays.
Thus, on 13 May, Athens Law School was squatted. This has historic symbolism, as the Law School was the first to revolt against Greece’s junta in 1973. The Polytechnic School uprising followed.
Law School students made it clear the squat was in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The following day, the police raided the School and ended the squat.
They arrested 28 people. Among them, eight women of foreign nationality are English, French, Italian, and German.
“Revolutionary Tourism in Athens Law School: They wanted to turn the School into Columbia”: This was written on TA NEA’s front page the following day.
Mainstream media referred to the incident as peacefully protesting students who were some kind of terrorists.
They emphasized that 13 out of the 28 arrested were no students.
“As seen in the photos, the squatters had put up a proper operational center within the School,” CNN Greece wrote, showing… a circle with chairs in the university’s interior yard.
“The profile of those arrested in Law School – They were known to the Authorities – A woman had been detained more than 5 times,” ERT informed us.
ERT went on to say that particularly 9 of the foreigners were known “mainly for attacks against policemen.” They did not specify what kind of “attacks.” According to their report, “one of the French women was among those who during the 25th March parade and while the tanks had passed from the Athens University Headquarters, made one of them stop by standing in front of it and waving a Palestinian flag.”
Wow.
On 16 May, the Greek authorities began deportation proceedings for the nine foreigners arrested during the police operation at Athens University Law School as “dangerous to public order.” They were prosecuted for misdemeanors.
Daily efsyn. gr underlined that this is an unprecedented incident in Greek history, especially given that the criminal court has never previously convicted these people.
Are these deportations a first for an EU state?
A falsifying evidence make-shift ‘factory’
Shocking were the findings of the latest updated 75-page report of Vasilis Kokotsakis on the deadly Tempi train crash. Kokotsakis is an expert hired by the victims’ relatives, and his new report was published in the Dimokratia newspaper.
The report detected documentation for falsified evidence “meant to cover up all evidence of the crime on 28th February at night,” Dimokratia commented.
This is a summing up of the main findings of the report as published by the newspaper:
■ Photos had been set up by the Greek Police, which is included in the case file: “From the photos taken by the Greek Police and are included in the case file, it is concluded that at least some of them do not depict real events, as the presumed [evidence] in them was configured,” Kokotsakis said, showing a photo from a container of the commercial train, in which an object was placed by third parties on a hole.
■ A falsified video was shown by ERT TV (under the PM’s control): “The video shown by ERT on 11.3.23 was collected by a camera probably located near its station of Leptokarya. ERT showed this video covering the left 1/3 and the right 1/3 of the image with a mask made of a low-pass filter, which does not allow us to see the [commercial] train clearly. Also, this video [of ERT] shows only the first engine of the commercial train, and then it is cut”. The report also expresses doubts about another video, this time on a private channel (Star).
■ He claims, adding to previous findings of his report, that during the investigation individuals of an unknown “group” of people were detected who, undisturbed by the authorities, made a “systematic, continuous and diligent effort to change and alter the landscape of the accident/of the crime” and who very methodically “were removing specific pieces from the crash site and were carefully placing them in the back of the remaining wagon, behind the ZIM-MONITOR-featured container.”
■ He notes omissions and mistakes by the investigative officers of the Fire Department, which “influenced the prosecutor’s judicial investigation, having misled it in the search for the essential truth,” leading the interrogation “to the wrong direction and consequently covering up the responsibilities and the real culprits behind the fire-explosion.”
■ It puts the State Chemistry Institution into the picture, which, with its “opinion – analysis of how the silicone oil behaves, essentially led the Fire Service to its report,” concluding that “the attempted manipulation of the presentation of the result by the State Chemistry Institution is reprehensible and extremely misleading.”
■ He confirms the existence of a large amount of flammable liquids in the commercial train, up to 12-15 tons, and most likely xylene, which caused the explosion, estimating that at least 16 of the 57 victims died from the [explosion] “mushroom.”
■ Finally, he reports that the state forensic reports show that the autopsy of the victims (the dead), part of the official procedure in such cases, never took place.
Until these lines were written, there had been no statement from the government about this report.
Did Greece send weapons to Ukraine?
“Greece secretly sent 250 containers with weapons to Ukraine”: This was the daily EfSyn’s front page on Thursday.
This is big news, as last March, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis denied any agreements with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding covert aid from Greece to Ukraine.
According to the report, the total military aid that Greece will send to Ukraine will be transferred in 250 containers. The first ones set off from a station near Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, on the 14th of May. They had to set off from there, following the strong reaction of the Thessaloniki port employees who denied shipping them from port, also following the denial of the Hellenic Train to transfer them.
The residents of Northern Greece’s areas from where the freight would pass appear concerned. The weapons are reported to be delivered to American forces, reloading them in Romanian wagons as the first stop will be Romania – and since Hellenic Train refused to supply their trains (no wonder after the Tempi accident). From there, the weapons will be transferred under the watch of the Americans to Ukraine.
The importance of this report is to be contemplated in the light of an earlier development:
On 21 March 2024, following Mitsotakis’s meeting with Zelenski in Ukraine, the Ukrainian president posted that they talked about the two countries’ “continuing cooperation on defense, particularly concerning the reinforcement of our air defense.”
Following the uproar the statement caused, as there had been no official announcement in Greece on defense cooperation with Ukraine, Mitsotakis stated:
“There is no agreement, it’s something we have made crystal clear. I couldn’t go to Ukraine and sign in secret, this is not to be taken seriously!” He added that Greece “supports Ukraine’s capability in defense, without risking the operational potential of our Armed Forces.”
Defense Minister Nikos Dendias dismissed Efsyn’s report on Thursday, denying an armaments transfer to Ukraine. “Our country does not provide something directly to Ukraine,” he said. But “we sell obsolete material to the Czech Republic and the USA, as we need the money, given that only the cost for destroying this material would exceed 100 million euros.”
How ingenious, just dumping trash to the Czechs and the Americans – and saving money!
The newspaper struck back the following day: “They admit what they deny,” it wrote, adding they are expecting answers to a new set of questions.
Read
Greece’s Secret Service EYP, which remains under the PM’s control, refuses to apply the Supreme Court’s decision and to inform PASOK’s leader Androulakis of the reasons for his surveillance. EYP was ordered to inform the Hellenic Authority for Communications and Privacy ADAE, which would inform Androulakis, but EYP said they could not provide such information to ADAE. No further explanation was given. As far as we can recall, there is no precedent in Greece’s post-junta history of a government denying to obey the Supreme Court. (The news item is in Greek here)
The government-appointed Evangelismos’ hospital manager (the biggest hospital in Athens) ordered the hospital to prioritize VIPs during the Conference Cup in Opap Arena, who would stay in luxury hotels Grande Bretagne, Grand Hyatt, and Marriot Athens! Such incidents should receive “absolute priority” on the 28, 29, and 30 May, was the order (The news item in Greek here).
3 people missing, 42 rescued when migrants boat capsized off Crete
Journalist Rena Kouveliioti brutally assaulted during report for Alpha TV
Like in a “war zone”: Patients in ER of big Athens public hospital
Femicide: Woman stabbed to death, body found on a road of Athens suburb
Police officers set up tents to protest their impoverishment
Mitsotakis-Erdogan disagree on Hamas, “Turkish Minority” & Chora church
Diplomatic spat between Greece and North Macedonia over President’s oath
Greek PM warns North Macedonia: Prespa Agreement violations will block its EU path
Greek PM asks EU intervention against high prices in supermarkets
Inflation in Greece at 3.1% in April; Food prices up 5.4% on annual basis
Unemployment in Greece “stuck” in double-digit rate since 2010
Dozens of school children with food poisoning in central Greece
6.500 rare books burnt to ashes after fire in Arisvi Culture Center on Lesvos
556 firefighters from 12 countries to aid Greece & other EU Members in the fire season
Sea Turtles started nesting earlier this year due high temperatures
Greece Weather: First “heat” wave with temperatures over 35°C
13-year-old boy detained over homophobic verbal attack at SYRIZA leader
Banknotes worth €40,000 from looted Libya bank surface in Central Greece
Over 400 died in water-related activities in 2023
Fatih Terim: PAO FC fires legendary Turkish coach after 3 defeats in a row
Notorious Turkish criminal arrested in Athens
Acropolis Museum offers free Admission on May 18
That’s all for this week; please forward this email to anyone you think might find it interesting and ask them to join our international community!
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