#rbnews international show - 29 September 2012

The English-language news show on radiobubble, hosted this week by @IrateGreek and @Pexlibanis. We discuss

• the anti-austerity demonstration on 26 September and subsequent arrests (guest: Chrysa Petsimeri), 
• the Geron Pastitsios blasphemy arrest, 
• a massive case of money laudering involving several prominent Greek politicians (guest: @Okeanews), 
• news from Belgium and the rest of Europe (guest: @Krotkie).

You can listen to the podcast after the jump. 

Is there freedom of speech in Greece?

If it was not so scary, it would actually be hilarious. Greek Police arrested
(google translated) on Friday the administrator of a Facebook page, and charged him with the offenses of “Malevolent Blasphemy” and “Insulting Religion”.

Let us start at the beginning however: A few years back the Far Right (and not only them apparently) in Greece discovered a monk, Elder Paisios, that supposedly was a highly spiritual person, even a prophet and an (after death) performer of miracles.

Skeptics have dismissed these claims and have even started satirizing the fixation of people with Elder Paisios. One of the most recent and successful satires has been Elder Pastitsios. A quick explanation for those that do not speak Greek: Pastisio is a dish, similar to the more widely known Mousaka, that sounds approximately the same with the name of the monk.

A few days ago, on the 17th of September, an MP of Golden Dawn, mentioned the FB page of Elder Pastitsios (comparing it with Athens Indymedia), in the Parliament and asked for the intervention(google translated) of the Cyber Crime Squad of the Greek Police, which happened according to the press release, on the 21st of September and its 27 year old administrator got arrested.

We should note here, that the Greek Orthodox Church, has not yet made any comments regarding the issue.

These events raise serious questions about the freedom of speech in Greece, its limitations and the influence of the Golden Dawn over the state.

Call to the Community on the demos in Thessaloniki

Once again, we are calling you to cover all together the demonstrations that will be happening in Thessaloniki this weekend, during the International Expo of Thessaloniki. 

The open community of the Greek citizens who is active on twitter under the hashtag #rbnews, trying to build up the notion of "citizens' journalism" will be covering the events using the hashtags #rbnews #skg #deth.

We would like to remind you that the cross-checked news are being published here. It would be useful for you to read some information about the culture and use of the #rbnews hashtag as well as our Declaration of Principles, so that you can better understand how we develop "Citizens' journalism" and also how we understand in general the "thinking internet" and our action on the web. 

More on rbnews here.