#rbnews weekly bulletin 15-21 June 2013

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

#rbnews weekly bulletin 25-31 May 2013

Prepared by the #rbnews international team, translated by @IrateGreek

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

#rbnews international show 01 June 2013: Fascism, antifascism and education

Today on #rbnews international, we continued our series on fascism and antifascism in Greece with a series on fascism, antifascism and education. Our guest was Gelly Aroni, a physical education teacher in an intercultural school in Faliro, a southern suburb of Athens, who also holds a PhD in social psychology from Panteion University and volunteers as a trainer on human rights education and intercultural education. Gelly shared with us some conclusions and thoughts from her 15 years of working in what is known as "intercultural education" in Greece, which essentially means education targeting non-native Greek speakers.

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

Complaint of censorship of a Hadjidakis song in the classroom goes viral, sparking controversy

Source: Manos Hadjidakis's official site

By @Inflammatory_ and @IrateGreek

The latest case of censorship in Greece found an unlikely target in a song by famous Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis. 

Deputy Minister of Education Theodoros Papatheodorou ordered last night an ex officio investigation into claims by a primary school music teacher in Thessaloniki that the principal of her school forbade her from teaching Hadjidakis's song Kemal to her 5th-grade class. This was followed today by a question in parliament by New Democracy MP Giannis Michelakis, who called upon the Ministry of Education to take an official position on the matter and condemned the school principal in the harshest of terms, calling the incident "a monument of ignorance, fanaticism and stupidity."

Update 19:35 EEST: The preliminary investigation of the Ministry of Education appears to show that the teacher's claim is correct. The principal has been asked to give a written explanation for her reaction. 

#rbnews weekly bulletin 11-17 May 2013

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

Update on the teachers' strike and civil mobilization - 16 May 2013

The Athens Students' Association protests in front of the Titania hotel,
where the Teachers' Union representatives are holding their meeting.

The issue of secondary school teachers going on strike during the national university entry examinations took a new turn last night as the conference of heads of regional teacher unions (ELME) seemed to orient itself towards suspending the strike, despite the overwhelming vote in favour of the strike by teachers' general assemblies one day earlier.

Update on the teachers' strike and civil mobilization - 15 May 2013

Posted by @IrateGreek

Flyer prepared by the Petroupoli Parents'
Union, demanding free public education for all

Regional teachers' unions (ELME) voted yesterday on the proposal to strike put forward by the Federation of Secondary Education Public School Teachers (OLME) to stage a strike on the first day of the national university entry examinations on 17 May and then to continue with a five-day strike on 20-24 May. The Communist-affiliated labour union PAME came up with a counter-proposal to hold a strike on 16-17 May only.

Participation was very high nationwide in the ELME assemblies, which voted massively in favour of the strike proposed by OLME, despite an order for civil mobilization of teachers issued preemptively by the government that came in effect today at noon. Under the terms of civil mobilization, teachers who actually go on strike face the risk of losing their jobs, or worse. It remains to be seen if the strike will actually take place or if the vote was merely a gesture of defiance by teachers towards the government.

The demonstration held on Monday evening in Athens against civil mobilization and the vote of the ELME assemblies did however not deter the government, which proceeded today with commandeering all school buildings and asking the police to guard them in order to avoid occupations of school buildings to prevent the exams from taking place. In a statement released today, Amnesty International says that "the use of special government measures to thwart a proposed teachers’ strike in Greece violates the country’s international human rights obligations" and calls the measures "disproportionate and unnecessary."

Update on the teachers' strike and civil mobilization - 14 May 2013

"They told me to wear the uniform"
A teacher protests in front of parliament on 13 May in Syntagma square
Picture by @MakisSinodinos

By @IrateGreek 

Greek secondary education teachers, together with various groups who joined them in solidarity, held a demonstration yesterday in front of parliament to protest the government's decision to issue preemptively a civil mobilization order for 86,000 teachers in order to prevent a possible strike on the first day of the national university entry exams, as proposed by the Federation of Secondary Education Teachers (OLME). The Council of State, Greece's highest administrative court, rejected yesterday a request by OLME for temporary suspension of the civil mobilization order, despite the dubious legality and constitutionality of back-to-work legislation issued before a formal decision to go on strike is officially approved by regional unions.

Teachers are the third professional group, after employees of the Athens metro and sailors, to be hit by a civil mobilization order since the current coalition government was elected to power. Trucking contractors and municipal workers's strikes were also broken in this way in 2010 and 2011. Of a total of 11 civil mobilization orders issued in Greece since the fall of the Junta, 5 were issued in the framework of bailout austerity policies.

Guest post: The Greek government denies secondary education teachers the right to strike

By Panagiotis Sotiris [1]

In the past three years Greek society has gone through a series of extremely aggressive austerity measures, under the terms dictated by the EU-IMF-ECB Troika that have led to a severe deterioration of living conditions. It has also been experiencing a constant erosion of democratic rights and basic civil liberties. Part of it is the attempt by the Greek government to practically abolish the right to strike in many sectors. Government representatives have repeatedly insisted that it is time to get rid of the “anomic” forms of protest and struggle that have been the main legacy of post-1974 radicalism.

The latest such example is the decision of A. Samaras, the Greek Prime Minister, to issue “civil mobilization” orders for all secondary education teachers, because OLME, the Secondary Education Teachers Confederation, has announced that it proposes to its member unions to stage a strike during the University Entry Exams beginning May 17. The order issued by the Prime Minister includes references to a potential “important disruption of the social and economic life of the country” and to “grave dangers for public order and the health of candidates taking the university entry exams”, and was issued as a preemptive measure before the strike is even decided by the local secondary education unions on Tuesday May 14.

#rbnews weekly bulletin 04-10 May 2013

Prepared by the #rbnews international team, translated by @IrateGreek

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

Head of OLME announces a 24h strike for the 1st day of university entrance exams

Edited by @inflammatory_

Following the board members meeting, head of OLME (Greek Federation of Secondary Education State School Teachers) Nikos Papachristos, spoke to the media saying: 

" The board members of OLME call for a 24-hour strike on Friday 17th May, the first day of national exams and propose to ELME regional unions a 5-day strike from 20th until 24th of May, in protest over the transfer of 4,000 permanent teachers & layoffs of 10,000 supply colleagues. We denote the Ministry of Education still has the option to do what needs to be done, to withdraw the presidential decree for the mandatory transferring of teachers, that would give us the chance to make one step back so that thousands of students manage to avoid the hassle. It was the ministry's disgraceful attitude that sparked the decision for strike action, by bringing on board this plan and at this time in an irreconcilable manner. All labor union movements back this decision except PAME* "

Detentions follow school students' demo outside the parliament

By @inflammatory_

Around 400 school students staged a protest at 12:00 outside the parliament against educational reforms and the broader socio-political condition in Greece. Pics by @moggoloss

Protests on the Greek National day (#oxi)

The 28 October parade in Syntagma 28 October is celebrated on Greece as "ohi day" ("no day") in reference to 28 October 1940, when Greek dictator Metaxas rejected the ultimatum by Benito Mussolini to allow the armies of fascist Italy to invade Greece. The celebrations are normally marked by a large military parade in Thessaloniki and schoolchildren parades throughout the country.