The Greek government on Wednesday denounced an attack on a well-known journalist by a ship owner in Athens, just days after a similar attack on an investigative reporter.
“We condemn unequivocally the assault yesterday (Tuesday) of which journalist Giorgos Papachristos was the victim and which left him with injuries,” said government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis.
“The case will be judged in court… press freedom is a fundamental principle of our democracy,” he added.
Papachristos, an editorialist and adviser at the centrist daily Ta Nea, was attacked on Tuesday evening at a football match in the capital.
According to the case filed by the journalist, the ship owner backed by two bodyguards hit him in the face and head before threatening to kill him.
Last Saturday, Kostas Vaxevanis, publisher of the investigative weekly Documento and a critic of the Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s conservative government, was assaulted while dining with his family by another ship owner on the holiday island of Evia, near Athens.
During Greece’s financial crisis in 2012, Vaxevanis published a list of names of Greeks holding Swiss bank accounts.
The editor’s union ESIEA condemned both attacks and noted that the man who went after Vaxevanis was on the list.
Syriza, the main leftist opposition party, deplored the fact that the government had not spoken out against the attack on Vaxevanis.
“Unfortunately for the New Democracy government all cases of violence against journalists are not equal,” Syriza said.
The NGO Reporters without Borders (RSF) considers Greece the worst country in Europe for press freedom.
Source: AFP
