Picket of
the Greek Embassy For Savas Michael-Matsas
Saturday 31st August, Called by Socialist Fight
Saturday 31st August, Called by Socialist Fight
The Nazi
organization “Golden Dawn” has launched a lawsuit against Savas Michael-Matsas,
in his capacity as general secretary of the EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party),
accusing him of “defamation” and “incitement to physical attacks”. At the same
time, the Nazis circulate online photos of Michael Savas with the fierce
anti-Semitic appeals to “Strike at the Jewish vermin”. The Greek State
authorities have accepted the demand for defamation and the prosecution of
Michael Savas. He has issued a statement: “As you know, the Nazi Golden Dawn in
Greece has started a legal action against the EEK and myself, its general
secretary.
I am
accused of “defamation”, “instigation of violence” and “disruption of the civil
peace”. At the same time, the Nazis have intensified their non-stop, vicious,
anti-Semitic and anti-communist campaign accusing me of being “the instrument
of a world Jewish conspiracy to foment civil war, so as to impose a
Judeo-Bolshevik regime in Greece”.
The Greek
state has endorsed this action by Golden Dawn by bringing charges against
myself, together with the former dean of the National Technical University of
Athens, Mr Constantine Moutzouris (accused of permitting the operation of the
alternative website, Athens Indymedia, from within the university).
The trial
will begin on September 3 2013. Already about 2,000 signatures of solidarity
have been collected internationally and nationally, and more are coming in
every day. Many political and trade union organisations in Greece and
internationally have expressed their solidarity. On August 29, a press
conference will be held in the headquarters of the Union of Journalists in
Athens. We want to set out our case, as well as reporting on the solidarity we
have received.
We want to
ask you to kindly send messages of solidarity, signatures, motions, etc, to
eek@eek.gr, in time to be presented both to the press and to the court.” We
strongly denounce this witch hunt launched by the Nazis, with the connivance of
the Greek authorities, and demand an end to the persecution of Michael Savas
and all anti-fascists.
Letter to Ambassador
Ad Hoc
organising Committee
for Savas
Michael-Matsas
and
Constantino Moutzouris
PO Box
59188, London, NW2 9LJ
Mobile:
07792 966 910
The
Ambassador
H.E. Mr.
Anastase Scopelitis
Greek
Embassy in London
1A Holland
Park,
London W11
3TP
31 August
2013
Dear Mr.
Anastase Scopelitis,
We, the
undersigned, are protesting today against of the trial of Savas Michael-Matsas
a Greek Jewish Marxist intellectual and General Secretary of the Workers
Revolutionary Party (EEK) of Greece and Constantino Moutzouris, the former
rector of the University of Athens, on 3 September 2013.
Savas
Matsas is accused of “defamation” against the Greek openly Nazi party, the
infamous Golden Dawn, for “instigation of violence and chaos” and “disruption
of the civil peace” because, four years ago, in May 2009, the EEK had issued a
leaflet calling for participation into an antifascist demonstration of protest
against a murderous attack by the Nazis against the immigrant communities in
Athens covered by the Greek police.
In December 2008, an important youth revolt
had shaken the entire country following the murder of a 15 years old youth,
Alexandros Grigoropoulos, by two police guards. The revolt continued for nearly
for two months, in what Dominique Strauss Kahn, head of the IMF at that time,
had rightly described as “the first political explosion of the current world
financial-economic crisis”.
The police
pogroms against the immigrants reached a climax in spring 2009, in Athens, in
the neighbourhood of Aghios Panteleimonas, where Golden Dawn thugs terrorised
the immigrants with the support of the local police. Left organizations had
called for anti-fascist demonstrations. The EEK took part and issued a leaflet calling
on the people to participate. The leaflet signed by the EEK as a political
party was also published in the party newspaper NEA PROOPTIKI and presented in
the party’s web site. This is the “crime” for which the General Secretary of
the EEK is accused and put on trial.
In May
2009, leading members of the Golden Dawn, including Ilias Panagiotaros, now a
member of the Greek Parliament, and Themis Skordeli (a woman with dark
connections with the underworld, who was accused of the assassination of an
Afghan immigrant but who has never been charged), posed a lawsuit against the
entire spectrum of the Greek left, from the Communist Party of Greece(KKE) and
SYRIZA to the extra-parliamentary left, ANTARSYA and EEK, all the immigrant
associations, and independent personalities like the Dean of the National
Technical University of Athens Constantinos Moutzouris (accused of allowing the
alternative web site, Athens Indymedia, to broadcast from the space in the
campus).
The lawsuit
was not acted upon until late 2012, after the Greek elections of May and June
2012 when Golden Dawn was catapulted to Parliament from the margins of
political life and the shadow of the State repressive apparatus. In November
2012, on the day celebrated nationally for decades now as the anniversary of
the 1973 youth revolt in the Athens National Technical University(Polytechnic)
against the military dictatorship of the colonels, the Greek police, after
receiving orders from the judiciary, started interrogations of all the accused
in the Nazi lawsuit of 2009. In June 2013, from the dozens of the accused in
the legal action of 2009, and interrogated in 2012, only Savas Michael
(Sabetai) Matsas of the EEK was called to trial on September 3, 2013, together
with the former Dean C. Moutzouris.
Simultaneously
with this preposterous “legal” action, the Nazis have intensified a non-stop,
vicious anti-Semitic and anti-communist campaign against the Secretary of the
EEK, accusing him of being “an instrument of the World Jewish Conspiracy to
foment civil war among Greeks to impose a Judeo-Bolshevik regime in Greece”.
Pictures of Savas Michael are presented combined with anti-Semitic insults and
openly death threats: “Crush the Jewish vermin!”
We wish to
express our total opposition to the Greek state and government collaboration
with the Nazi Golden Dawn in bringing these persecutions.
We wish to
express our outrage at the collaboration of the Greek state and government in
failing to oppose and thereby collaborating with the vile anti-Semitic campaign
against Savas Michael-Matsas and thereby against all Jews.
We demand
that the charges against Savas Michael-Matsas and Constantino Moutzouris be
dropped immediately and that the Greek state and government protect the
immigrant community against the fascist assaults of the Golden Dawn and cease
prosecuting their defenders.
Signed
Steve
Hedley on behalf of the Rail and Maritime Union (UK)
Weyman
Bennett on behalf of Unite Against Fascism (UAF, UK)
D.R. Rayner
Lysaght on behalf of Socialist Democracy (Ireland)
David Yaffe
on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Group (UK)
Michael
Holden on behalf of the Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group (London, UK)
Michael
Pröbsting on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency
(RCIT, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, USA, Brazil and Austria)
Alex
Steiner on behalf of permanent-revolution.org (USA)
Martin
Ralph on behalf of the International Socialist League (British section of the
LIT)
William
Keats on behalf of the Communist Left (Australia)
Tony Gard
on behalf of the Revolutionary Internationalist League (British Section of the
ITC)
Movimiento
Popular Unificado (Panama)
Juan Marino
and Lionel Zivals on behalf of Tendencia Piquetera Revolucionaria – TPR
(Argentina)
Matías
Mlotek on behalf of Frente de Estudiantes en Lucha – FEL (Argentina)
Daiana
Asquini on behalf of Agrupación de Mujeres en Lucha – Las Piqueteras
(Argentina)
Sirimal
Peiris on behalf of Workers Voice (Sri Lanka)
Felicity
Dowling Cheshire West NUT Solidarity officer (UK)
Martin
Jansen on behalf of the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG, South Africa)
Frank
Fitzmaurice on behalf of the United Socialist Party (tUSP, UK)
Martin
Thomas on behalf of the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL, UK)
Marcus
Halaby on behalf of Workers Power (WP,UK)
John Byrne
on behalf of the Anti Fascist Network (UK)
Mark
Fischer on behalf of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB, Weekly Worker)
Antônio
Junior on behalf of Vanguarda Metalúrgica (Brazil)
Humberto
Rodrigues on behalf of the Communist League / Liaison Committee for the Fourth
International (LCFI, Brazil)
León Carlos
on behalf of the Tendencia Militante Bolchevique (LCFI, Argentina)
Gerry
Downing on behalf of Socialist Fight, (LCFI, UK)
Yours
Sincerely on behalf of the Ad Hoc Committee
Gerry Downing
