An interesting “social experiment” carried out by the Greek chapter of ‘ActionAid’ was presented in Athens on Thursday, ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21, which showed that an encouragingly large number of people in the city are prepared to stand up for racism victims.

The experiment, designed to see how people react when they witness a racist attack, used two actors, one Greek and the other Bangladeshi, to play out a racist assault as unsuspecting witnesses watched. The “experiment” was held on February 20 in Athens’ Syngrou-Fix area, at two separate bus stops, and involved the Greek actor verbally abusing the Bangladeshi actor as he sat on a bench, repeatedly demanding that he “get up off the bench so that a human being can sit down.”

The scene was repeated 22 times over eight hours and witnessed by more than 200 passers-by as ActionAid cameras rolled on, filming the real reactions of the people waiting for the bus.

ActionAid’s head of communications Anna Botsoglou pointed to results that were pleasantly suprising as people rushed to the victim’s defence in 15 of 22 occasions. On four occasions people ignored the incident. On two occasions, people applauded the attacker. Two other occasions showed mixed reactions.