Proto Thema journalists letter to ESIEA after new attacks against its reporter

Letter published after cowardly attack in new non-paper by Greek government

Following the leak of the Greek government’s latest non-paper, Monday, which in a vulgar tone singles out and personally attacks one of Proto Thema newspaper’s journalists, Grigoris Tziovaras, who was one of the reporters that co-signed a piece revealing thousands of hirings in the public sector by the government over there past year, the journalists of Proto Thema published a letter calling on the Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers (ESIEA) to take action and intervene against these constant and despicable attacks, through their their representative at the mixed council of ESIEA, John Makriyannis. The letter raises the extremely worrying matter of the latest unethical and cowardly attack against journalists at Proto Thema, raising awareness of a grave problem, which is the unabashed and brute tactics adopted by Maximos Hall that provokes the unhindered operation of the press and the professional integrity of journalists. The intentions of the Greek government are very clear, says the letter, stressing that it aims to intimidate, manipulate and incriminate any form of investigative journalism or criticism against the government. The letter requests of ESIEA to take steps in dealing with the matter and use its institutional role to rise a barrier of defence against the continuation and expansion of such tactics. It goes on to point out that there have been many occasions when the journalists of Proto Thema have been the targets of personal attacks by the government due to articles that were “unpleasant” and “annoying”.