Informativo semanal desde Grecia #42 - 27 Julio 2013

En las noticias de #rbnews international de esta semana:

• Los servicios públicos de salud se degradan aún más en Grecia con el cierre de hospitales y despidos de personal 
• El gobierno sigue sin reaccionar por la fuga de datos personales de la Secretaría General de Sistemas de Información del ministerio de finanzas
• Sigue el apagón de la ERT 
• Prohibida por el alcalde de Atenas, el uso de una plaza en Atenas por la Aurora Dorada para distribuir alimentos sólo a griegos
• Sigue la recaudación de dinero para la fianza para la liberación de Kostas Sakkás
• Continúan en julio varias protestas en Grecia de diversos sectores de trabajo contra las medidas del gobierno

#rbnews weekly bulletin 13-19 July 2013

The text companion to this week's #rbnews international show is now online. You can read it after the jump.

#rbnews international show 20 July 2013 - Health in the time of the crisis

This week on #rbnews international, radiobubble contributor @Jaquoutopie and I discussed the Greek health system in the time of the crisis: the chronic issues, the cutbacks, and their impact on the population. Deep down, we wondered if the Greek health system is still serving its purpose of providing care but also protection for patients.

You can listen to the podcast after the jump.

Boletim informativo da Grécia #17 - 20.07.2013

Preparado pela equipe #rbnews, traduzido por @KHatzinikolaou

No noticiário internacional #rbnews esta semana:

• As aduções de transexuais continuam em Thessaloniki
• Os trabalhadores responderam na adoção do novo pacote de austeridade com greves e manifestações, enquanto o Ministro das Finanças alemão, Wolfgang Schäuble, visitava Atenas
• A transmissão do programa de greve da ERT continua, em paralelo com o esquema transicional do governo.
• O impacto demográfico da austeridade é dramático, segundo pesquisa realizada pela Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública
• A Aurora Dourada (Golden Dawn) desafia novamente no Parlamento

Informativo semanal desde Grecia #41 - 13 Julio 2013

Radiobubble Informativo Semanal 20 Julio 2013 by Mpatman on Mixcloud

En las noticias de #rbnews international de esta semana

• Siguen las detenciones de mujeres transexuales en Tesálonica 
• Atenas recibe la visita del ministro de Finanzas alemán, Wolfgang Schäuble, mientras en el país proliferan huelgas y manifestaciones como respuesta a la adopción de nuevas medidas de austeridad, condicionadas por el nuevo tramo de rescate
• Sigue la transmisión de la radiotelevisión pública ERT
• La austeridad está teniendo en Grecia un impacto demográfico dramático, según una encuesta realizada por la Escuela Nacional de Salud Pública
• Nuevos retos de Aurora Dorada en el Parlamento

Bulletin d'information du 20 juillet en Grèce #39

Bulletin FR Radiobubble 130720 by Krot on Mixcloud

A la une de #rbnews international cette semaine: 

• Les détentions de femmes transexuelles se poursuivent à Thessalonique 
• Avec une grève et des mobilisations ont répondu les travailleurs au vote d'un nouveau paquet de mesures d'austérité, mardi; jeudi, le Ministre des Finances allemand Wolfgang Schaüble a rendu une visite officielle à Athènes. 
• La diffusion du programme de grève de ERT se poursuit, mais la chaîne transitoire du gouvernement transmet aussi
• Les conséquences de l'austérité à la démographie sont dramatiques, selon une recherche de l'Ecole Nationale de la Santé Publique 
• De nouvelles provocations de l'Aube Dorée ont eu lieu dans le Parlement la semaine passée

Notiziario dalla Grecia #12 - 13 luglio 2013

Nelle notizie internazionali de #rbnews questa settimana:

• Dopo due anni e mezzo di carcere e 38 giorni di sciopero della fame, Kostas Sakkas è stato rilasciato su decisione del Consiglio d'Appello
• Gli arresti arbitari dei residenti di Skuriés, provocano reazioni a Calcidia.
• Tra le proteste generali iniziano le trasmissioni della nuova televisione pubblica greca mentre allo stesso tempo, gli ex dipendenti della ERT continuano con la pubblicazione del notiziario quotidiano.
• Constantina Kuneva ottiene la prima vittoria in tribunale, dopo l'attacco ha sofferto nel 2008 a causa della sua attività sindacale.

Greek Health Minister says he will not repeal health provision that led to forced HIV tests, says he welcomes proposals

The debate over a controversial health provision, which led to forced HIV tests on vulnerable social groups in Athens in 2012 continued this week in the Greek Parliament.

Health Provision 39a which was reinstated last week by newly-appointed Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis, one month after its repeal by former Deputy Minister Foteini Skopouli, has caused a fierce reaction from Greek and international human rights organizations, medical groups and prominent individuals in HIV/AIDS policy; among them Public Service Europe, Human Rights Watch and most recently The Lancet medical journal, which accused the Greek leadership of “repeating past mistakes” in an editorial.

Informativo semanal desde Grecia #40 - 13 Julio 2013

Radiobubble Informativo Semanal 13 Julio 2013 by Mpatman on Mixcloud

En las noticias de #rbnews international de esta semana:

• Después de dos años y medio de prisión y 38 días de huelga de hambre, Kostas Sakkás ha sido liberado por decisión del Consejo de Apelaciones
• Las detenciones de residentes y la arbitrariedad policial en Skuriés, Calcídica, provocan reacciones entre los residentes locales
• Bajo protesta general la nueva televisión pública griega comienza a emitir, mientras que al mismo tiempo, los antiguos empleados de la ERT siguen emitiendo un programa diario
• Constantina Kuneva logra una primera victoria judicial por el atentado que sufrió en 2008 debido a su acción sindical

#rbnews weekly bulletin 06-12 July 2013

The text companion to this week's #rbnews international show is now online. You can read it after the jump.

#rbnews international show 13 July 2013: reactions to the case of Kostas Sakkas

For this week's #rbnews international show, we asked netizens from Greece and abroad to send in their reactions to the case of Kostas Sakkas, who was released on Thursday 11 June after 951 days in prison without a trial and 38 days of hunger strike.

Many thanks to all those who sent in a short sound clip, and apologies to those whose clips we couldn't broadcast due to a lack of time.

You can listen to the podcast, as usual, after the jump.

Police attack on a demonstration for K. Sakkas (and my arrest for a video) - by @_giant_

By @_giant_, re-posted from Omnia TV and translated from Greek by @potmos

On Wednesday, July 10, a demo near the Acropolis was arranged in order to inform people about Kostas Sakkas’s hunger strike.

During the march, in which were about 150 people, slogans were written and leaflets were distributed, mostly in English, since the place is mostly a tourist destination.

When the march was stopped from continuing towards the Acropolis by police forces, it went on to Thissio through the pedestrian road, without an incident.

After a while, under the pretext that slogans were being written on walls, the march was attacked by a motorbike-mounted police force (DELTA), and arrests were made.

People protested the arrests and were attacked with flash-bang and teargas grenades.

Italy's Collectivo Prezzemolo's solidarity release for Kostas Sakkas

Collectivo Prezzemolo from Italy issued the following release for Kostas Sakkas: 

We demand the immediate release of Kostas Sakkas

"Kostas Sakkas is on hunger strike for 36 days. He has been held in preemptive detention for more than 30 months. His ongoing detention is violating the Constitution and the legislation, which do not allow for more than 18 months of imprisonment without a trial.

Kostas Sakkas is accused of arms possession and participation in the organization “Fire Cells’ Conspiracy” despite that both himself and the arrested members of the organization deny it. In an official announcement, the governing party of New Democracy is accusing Sakkas of “anarchism”, in an attempt to penalize his ideas.

At this point, his health is considered to be in a very critical condition, as the doctors have stated that they consider not only the possibility of permanent health damage, but also his death, as a potential outcome of the hunger strike. He is determined, though, to go forward with it, until the end.
Despite the above, a decision issued last week by the Judiciary Council of the Appeals’ Court stated that his preemptive detention can be continued. The Amnesty International, the Lawyers’ Boards and many other relevant institutions have identified many shortcomings in the legal procedures that were followed.

The Greek State, blindly following the Troika’s diktats, appears once again ruthless and insensible. Having adopted a strategy of extreme repression in order to apply a disastrous neoliberal economic policy, it once again chooses to ignore its own legislation and is ready to let a human being die in prison, without even officially confirming what he is accused of.

The Greek state promotes a logic that permits it to penalize any kind of struggle, to invade the homes of anti-mine activists in Skouries, to send the riot police inside the Rectorate of the Athens University in order to arrest protesting students, to condemn a whole society in “slow death” through the extreme austerity measures. It is this exact logic being applied in the case of Kostas Sakkas.

Because the Greek government’s disastrous economic policy and frontal attack to labor rights cannot be applied without extreme forms of repression and liberties’ suppression.

We won’t let them murder Kostas Sakkas! We won’t allow them to kill the Greek people!

We demand the immediate liberation of Kostas Sakkas."

Communiqué de l'Initiative de solidarité avec la Grèce qui resiste (Bruxelles) pour Kostas Sakkas

L'Initiative de solidarité avec la Grèce qui resiste de Bruxelles a publié le communiqué suivant:

Costas Sakkas est en grève de faim depuis 35 jours, et détenu en prison depuis 30 mois, en violation de la Constitution et des lois qui ne permettent que 18 mois de detention preventive. Sakkas est accusé d'avoir eu des armes dans sa possession et aussi de participer à l'organisation 'Conspiration des socles de feu', même si lui même, ainsi que l'organisation l'ont démenti. Entretemps, le parti gouvernementale de la Nouvelle Démocratie l'accuse aussi, dans son annonce, d' 'être anarchiste', dans un effort de criminaliser l'idéologie.

Sa santé est en état critique maintenant, puisque les médecins traitants déclarent que des dommages irreversibles ne sont plus exclus, ni la mort d'ailleurs. Mais il semble déterminé de continuer sa grève de faim jusqu'à la fin. Pourtant, selon la décision du conseil judiciaire de la Cour d'appel, publiée lors de la semaine dernière, sa détention provisoire peut être continué malgré le fait que l'Amnéstie Internationale, des barreaux et d'autres organisations constatent plusieurs défauts de procédure dans le cas de sa détention.

L'Etat grec, obéissant aveuglement aux ordres de la Troika, encore une fois se montre sans scrupule et ne cède pas. Ayant adopté une ligne de reppression extrême, afin de poursuivre une politique néolibérale catastrophique, encore une fois il est en train de violer la Constitution (qui prévoit 18 mois de détention provisoire au maximum) ainsi que toutes les lois qui protègent des droits, ici droits de procédure pénale, et laisse un homme mourir dans la prison sans qu'il soit jamais officiellement accusé de quelque chose. Dans la même logique qui le mène à criminaliser toute forme de lutte, ce même Etat qui casse les portes pour entrer dans les maisons des militants anti mines de Skouries, qui envoie les CRS dans le Rectorat de l'Université d'Athènes afin d'arrêter des étudiants qui protestent, qui condamne à une mort lente un peuple entier à travers l'austérité extrême, ce même Etat traite de la même logique le cas de Kostas Sakkas. Car les politiques catastrophiques d'austérité, l'attaque frontale contre les droits des travailleurs et des conquêtes sociales ne peut pas s'appliquer sans une repression extrême ou une suppression des libertés.
Nous ne laisseros pas tuer Sakkas. Nous ne laisserons pas tuer le peuple grec.

Nous exigeons la libération immédiate de Costas Sakkas.

L'Initiative de Solidarité à la Grèce qui Résiste - Bruxelles

Guest post: ‘Days of Junta’ in the University of Athens

By Panagiotis Sotiris[1]

For anyone watching what was happening at the central building of the University of Athens on July 8 2013 the feeling was one of reliving images from the 1967-1974 military dictatorship, especially if we take into consideration that collective memory in Greece is still haunted by the image of a military tank crashing the gate of the National Polytechnic University during the November 1973 student uprising.

Tens of riot policemen and special police units in full gear surrounded and stormed the building and arrested 31 students who were peacefully protesting against changes in the administration of Greek universities and especially the introduction of ‘University Councils’ as the main governing bodies of Greek Higher Education, as part of the latest wave of university reforms.

University Councils, modeled after the new forms of academic management spreading all over Europe, are comprised of academics and representatives of ‘society’ and the ‘business community’ and have been criticized as undermining academic democracy and enhancing an aggressively entrepreneurial conception of Higher Education. Both University Teachers’ Unions and Student Unions have waged a long battle against university councils and the July 8 protest was part of this battle.

However, this time the president of the University of Athens Councils, Prof. Dimitri Bertsimas, an MIT professor, chose to call the police, stating that he and the other members of the council were in danger. The call to the police was made by Vaso Kinti, a philosophy professor well known for her support to aggressive neoliberal reforms.

Since the Right of Asylum in Universities, the explicit ban on forces of order to enter University premises has been lifted, as part of the latest wave of university reforms, there was no legal obstacle to the police invasion. The police stormed the building and arrested the students. Police were even ready to use an angle grinder to open another door and arrest the rest of the protesting students, when under the protests of union representatives and members of parliament they were ordered to withdraw. In the end all students were set free and no charges were pressed against them, but the problem of a brutal police attack against a legitimate student protest remains.

This case highlights the motivation behind the decision to abolish University Asylum. For many years those supporting giving police the right to intervene inside university premises (including the US Ambassador in Athens!) insisted that this is a necessary measure to prevent violent rioting. In contrast, supporters of the university sanctuary warned that such a measure would lead to the police invading universities in order to arrest protesting students and striking professors. It is now becoming obvious that we are witnessing an authoritarian institutional transformation of Greek Higher Education, aiming at restricting the ability of the student movement and the university movement in general to raise obstacles to the shift towards a more entrepreneurial Higher Education.

The Greek Student Movement has a long history of successful struggles in the past 35 years, governments have been forced to repeal laws or even the 2007 constitutional reform under the pressure of mass student movements, and all these can explain why radical student practices are now being targeted as part of the broader undemocratic and authoritarian turn that has accompanied the austerity packaged and the EU-IMF-ECB supervision.  It is the same authoritarian turn that led to shutting down Greek Public Radio and Television (ERT) and keeps hunger striker Kostas Sakkas in prison for more than 30 months without trial.

Hopefully, students, university teachers and other higher education personnel have insisted that they are not intimidated  by such developments and that they will continue struggling against the neoliberal transformation of Higher Education, including struggling against any attempts to make ‘University Councils’ the main governing bodies of Greek Universities. The fight is far from over.

---

[1] Panagiotis Sotiris teaches social theory and social and political philosophy at the Department of Sociology of the University of the Aegean. He can be reached at psot@soc.aegean.gr

Boletim informativo da Grécia #16 - 06.07.2013

Preparado pela equipe #rbnews, traduzido por @KHatzinikolaou

No noticiário internacional #rbnews esta semana:

• Depois de dois anos e sete meses de detenção sem julgamento, Kostas Sakkas se encontra no 33º dia de greve de fome
• Com ERT ainda fechada, o governo grego está promovendo um projeto de lei para criar uma nova, encolhida, emissora nacional
• Com o número de incidentes racistas subindo na Grécia, a Rede de Registro de Incidentes de Violência Racista apresentou uma série de propostas para o novo Ministro da Justiça
• O novo ministro da Saúde, Adonis Georgiadis, imediatamente depois de assumir seu cargo, re-ativou a inaceitável portaria que ordena que depois de adução de prostitutas o teste de AIDS seja obrigatório, criminalizando assim a doença; sua decisão provocou protestos internacionais.

#rbnews weekly show 06 July 2013 - The failure(s) of democracy in Greece

This week on the #rbnews international show, we asked lawyer Crystali Bourcha from the Movement for the Liberties and Democratic Rights of our Times (Greek acronym KEDDE) and journalist Mariniki Alevizopoulou from Unfollow Magazine to comment on the items that we included in our news bulletin of the week, which all seem to point towards the failure of democracy in Greece.

You can listen to the podcast and read the news bulletin after the jump.
The interviews were taken by phone. We apologize for the poor quality of the sound, especially in the case of our interview with Crystali Bourcha. For some unexplainable reason, the recording device was particularly intent to add parasites to her speech. 

Bulletin d'informations du 06 juillet 2013 en Grèce

                                            Bulletin FR 20130706 by Irategreek on Mixcloud

(télécharger)

A la une de #rbnews international cette semaine:

• Kostas Sakkas entame son 33ème jour de grève de la faim après deux ans et sept mois d'emprisonnement sans procès 
• ERT demeure officiellement fermée pendant que le gouvernement grec propose une loi pour fonder une nouvelle agence, plus petite, de radiotélévision publique.
• Les cas de violence raciste continuent de se multiplier, alors que le Réseau d'enregistrement des incidents de violence raciste publie une série de recommandations au Ministre de la Justice.
• Le nouveau Ministre de la santé Adonis Georgiadis réétablit le décret scandaleux qui permet aux autorités sanitaires d'effectuer des examens médicaux forcés pour le virus du SIDA, provoquant un tollé international quelques jours après sa prise de fonctions

Informativo semanal desde Grecia #39 - 8 Julio 2013

Radiobubble Informativo Semanal 6 Julio 2013 by Mpatman on Mixcloud

En las noticias de #rbnews international de esta semana: 

• Después de dos años y siete meses de detención sin juicio, Kostas Sakkás lleva ya 33 días en huelga de hambre 
• Con la ERT aún cerrada, el gobierno griego está promoviendo un proyecto de ley para crear una nueva emisora nacional, de dimensiones inferiores. 
• A raíz del aumento de incidentes racistas en Grecia, la Red de Grabación de Incidentes de Violencia Racista dio a conocer una serie de propuestas dirigidas al nuevo ministro de Justicia, 
• Promovido por el nuevo Ministro de salud, Ádonis Goergiadis, el gobierno retoma el decreto que obliga a las mujeres, en algunos casos prostitutas, a hacer una prueba del SIDA penalizando la enfermedad,lo que ha provocado una protesta internacional. 

Reinstatement of controversial Health Provision slammed by HIV and Human Rights Groups

A legal provision that led to mass arrests of HIV-positive women in Greece in 2012 has been reinstated, causing widespread condemnation by local and international organizations and human rights advocates.

Provision No 39A was voted by former socialist Health Minister Andreas Loverdos in April 2012 and led to an unprecedented case of HIV criminalization a few weeks later when the Greek police in cooperation with the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, KEELPNO, rounded up hundreds of women from the center of Athens and force-tested them for HIV inside police stations. 

Wekelijks bulletin uit Griekenland 29 juni 2013 #19

Deze week in het nieuws bij rbnews international:

• Na de verlenging van zijn onrechtmatige, 30 maanden durende voorlopige hechtenis met nog eens 6 maanden, is de anarchist Kostas Sakkas zijn 25ste dag van hongerstaking ingegaan om zo zijn vrijlating af te dwingen.
• Een week na het besluit van de Raad van State om de onmiddellijke heropening van ERT te verordenen, is de publieke omroep nog steeds niet via de publieke frequenties te ontvangen.
• Volgens de besluiten van de trojka en de Griekse regering zullen 12.500 ambtenaren uiterlijk op 8 juli op non-actief moeten worden gesteld. - Steeds meer ontslagen en sluitingen van grote ondernemingen; de werkloosheid neemt toe terwijl de rechten van de werknemers worden omzeild.
• De leidster van de Canadese Groene Partij was getuige van de methoden die Eldorado Gold toepast in Skouries op het schiereiland Chalkidiki.