PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis addresses Parliament on public protest bill (video)

The bill addresses the issue of public space protests and gatherings

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsiotakis is addressing the Parliament on the bill under discussion regarding the revision of the legal framework on the right to protest and demonstrate in public spaces.

“The practice of blind violence, of unbridled destruction, is called fascism,” he said, noting that “such phenomena occur from time to time in the name of the democratic right to demonstrate.”

As he said, the bill “shields the freedom of expression of citizens”, adding that “the right to assemble is fully protected. It is recognized and enshrined in our constitutions with almost the same wording in all revisions. ”

The majority of the House agree that the government is adopting actions that go without saying, while Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis explained that for the first time in the country’s post-junta political history, a regulatory framework is in place for street marches and protests so that the right to assemble is exercised normally even for a few people without them, however, impeding on the majority of other citizens’s rights.

SYRIZA, on its part, upped the tones resorting to extreme rhetoric by talking about juntas, authoritarianism and fascism.