Legal pressures against media outlets remained a concern.

 

Media freedom in Greece was thrust into the international spotlight in April 2021 when well-known Greek crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz was gunned down out‐ side his house in Athens. He had returned home from a shift on a daytime show on Star TV when he was ambushed by two men on a moped and shot at least six times with a silenced weapon, killing him instantly. The assassination, the first of a journalist in Greece since 2010, shocked the country’s journalistic community and was met with pledges by the Prime Minis‐ ter to bring those responsible to justice. The killing also led to greater scrutiny of the suffocating climate for independent journalism in a fragmented landscape marked by a politically polarised press. Even before the assassination, 2021 began with a worrying start for Greece’s journalistic community. In January, a new plan for policing protests was launched by the Ministry of Civil Protection, raising concerns it could seriously limit the ability of journalists and photojournalists to properly cover events in the future. In‐ cluded in the report were plans to confine journalists to a demarcated area that would be approved beforehand by police. These sections of the plans drew intense opposition and were later scrapped. Even then, however, challenges for journalistic reporting on protests were clear. According to MapMF data, 23% of all alerts were recorded at demonstrations. In February, for example, Documento photojournalist Mario-Rafael Biko was detained while covering a protest in Athens. Later that month, a group of police officers in riot gear and armed with plastic shields assaulted the photojournalist Yannis Liakos in front of the Greek Parliament. In November, Greek photojournalist Orestis Panagiotou was hospitalised with a broken toe after being hit by a water cannon used by riot police to try and disperse a protest by firefighters. Overall, police and law enforcement were re‐ sponsible for 41% of MapMF alerts. 

Legal pressures against media outlets remained a concern. In March, an arrest warrant was issued against the publisher of Documento, Kostas Vaxevanis, by members of the Greek police for allegedly violating data privacy rights. The warrant was issued following a criminal lawsuit filed by 22 police officers from the Attica General Police Directorate (GADA). The arrest warrant against Vaxevanis was valid for 24 hours and was never acted upon. Other MapMF alerts involved serious SLAPPs. In October, independent media outlet Alterthess and its journalist Stavroula Poulimeni were targeted by a SLAPP by an executive at a Greek gold mining company about whose criminal conviction the media had reported. The lawsuit demanded €100,000 in damages and threatened the Poulimeni with criminal sanctions. Concerns over increased criminal prosecution of journalists increased in Novem‐ber, when the government passed controversial amendments to the criminal code which introduced fines and jail sentences for journalists found guilty of publishing “false news” in the press or via the internet that was “capable of causing concern or fear to the public or undermining public confidence in the national economy, the country's defense capacity or public health”.  Under the draft law, the publisher of a media outlet responsible would also face prison and financial penalties. Journalists’ unions in Greece said the bill would lead to journalists self-censoring or being jailed for reporting on sensitive issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The safety of journalists more broadly was also an area of concern. Nearly one in four cases (23%) of alerts on MapMF involved types of physical attacks on journalists. After the murder of Karaivaz, Vaxevanis published an article stating that he had been informed that a contract had been tendered for his assassination within the criminal underworld. After the alleged threat was reported, Vaxevanis was placed under increased protection. In February, the offices of Greek TV station Action 24 were firebombed and attacked with stones. In June, two gas canisters exploded in front of journalist Giannis Pretenteris' house in Athens at 4am damaging two vehicles. Police launched an investigation to assess whether the explosion was part of a plot to kill or intimidate the journalist. In August, reporter Eleftheria Spyrakiand a cameraman from OPEN TV station were physically attacked and insulted by an angry group of citizens who damaged their car and stole personal belongings. Journalists reporting on the contentious issue of illegal refugee “pushbacks” in the Aegean continued to face pressure. In May a reporting team from the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO was arbitrarily detained by police while trying to document an alleged “pushback”. The same happened in November, when German freelance journalist and photographer Tim Lüddemann and his team were detained on the Greek island of Lesbos. In November, Dutch journalist Ingeborg Beugel left the country after being subjected to on‐ line harassment and attempts to discredit her work after she was involved in a heated exchange with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over allegations of pushbacks. The most serious case of pressure on journalists reporting on migration occurred in November, when leaked documents were published in the Greek newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton (EFSYN) which revealed that the government’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) had been secretly monitoring Stavros Malichudis, a reporter working with the non-profit investigative journalism platform Solomon. The case renewed concerns over source confidentiality and the illegal surveillance of journalists.