The family of the hip-hop artist stabbed to death by a self-confessed Golden Dawn supporter in September has condemned Pasok’s youth wing for including his image in a poster commemorating the 40th anniversary of the suppression of the Athens Polytechnic uprising.
Reading a statement on behalf of Pavlos Fyssas’ family, a lawyer said that the singer “was not theirs [Pasok’s], he didn’t share their ground and, more importantly, he was profoundly anti-memorandum”.
Fyssas’ image is one of four included on Pasok Youth poster. Also featured are Grigoris Lambrakis, a leftist MP assassinated by rightwing extremists in 1963; Sotiris Petroulas, a student who was killed when police attacked demonstration in 1965, and teacher Nikos Temponeras, who was murdered at a demonstration by a New Democracy city councillor in Patras in 1991.
The Fyssas family, in its statement, added that the singer had his own beliefs and leftwing ideas, he was not aligned with and party group. They accused Pasok of trying to “appropriate his sacrifice”.
Defending its decision to use his image on the post, Pasok Youth said that the singer had become a symbol through his life and songs and was therefore included alongside the images of the other three, in order to “honour him, not to appropriate him; to remember him, not to forget him, and to show that Fyssas died at the hand of a fascist”.
“The message is strong and clear: Lambrakis, Petroulas, Temponeras and Fyssas are symbols of the permanent struggle for democracy, freedom and national pride. And these symbols belong to the people,” the Pasok Youth statement concluded.
Sunday 17 November marks the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Polytechnic uprising, which the military junta crushed with tanks. Twenty-four people are recorded as having been killed on or around that date, none of whom are mentioned or depicted on the Pasok Youth poster.
Source: enet English
