[HCDX] Police storm ex-Greek state broadcaster ERT, break up sit-in Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/police-storm-exgreek-state-broadcaster-ert-break-up-sitin-20131108-2x4x5.html#ixzz2k2Zm1bWK

[Zacharias LIangas <zliagas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Police storm ex-Greek state broadcaster ERT, break up sit-in

Athens: Riot police stormed the former Greek state television 
headquarters in Athens on Thursday and evicted dozens of journalists who 
were fired five months ago, ending a protracted sit-in against the 
broadcaster's closure.
The government took ERT off the air in June to meet a target for public 
sector job cuts set by foreign lenders, triggering a political crisis 
that prompted one party to quit the ruling coalition.
Police carried out the pre-dawn eviction as inspectors from European 
Union and International Monetary Fund lenders were in Athens reviewing 
the progress it made in meeting the targets of its multi-billion bailout 
before disbursing more funds.
"I was on air when riot police stormed into the studio and ordered me to 
shut the microphones and leave," said Nikos Tsibidas, spokesman for ERT's 
radio workers union. "I've never seen anything like this before; it's 
barbaric and indicative of the kind of democracy we have in this 
country."
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Greece's anti-bailout opposition denounced the police raid and forced a 
vote of confidence against the government. Prime Minister Antonis 
Samaras's government is expected to win the vote, which will be held late 
on Sunday, without much trouble.
Minor scuffles broke out between some protesters and riot police, who had 
cordoned off the area and blocked the entrance to the building that has 
been draped for months with banners reading "ERT Open" and "No to 
layoffs".
Police fired a few rounds of tear gas to disperse small groups of 
protesters and briefly detained four people for resisting authorities 
during the raid, officials said.
Some of the journalists, who have kept ERT alive with an illegal news 
feed over the Internet for five months, refused to leave the yard of the 
building, where hundreds of chanting ERT supporters rallied.
More rallies were planned for later in the day.
"This is how fascism works, slyly and in darkness," said Adrianna Bili, a 
former ERT employee, after she and other protesters were evicted from the 
building. "I feel like they have raped me, like they have violated my 
home, they have violated my life, democracy. They have destroyed 
everything."
On Thursday, the channel showed footage of an empty newsroom and images 
of the headquarters with the text "ERT belongs to all Greeks" running 
across it.
Delirium
The government said the police operation shortly after 4am (0200 GMT) was 
carried out to "apply the law and restore legality." Government spokesman 
Simos Kedikoglou, a former ERT journalist himself, said ERT was "under 
illegal occupation".
Inside the building, police checked in the presence of a prosecutor 
whether facilities and equipment had been damaged since the broadcaster's 
closure.
"The government has reached such a point of delirium that it is staging a 
coup against itself," said Zoe Konstantopoulou, a senior lawmaker from 
the leftist opposition Syriza party, who rushed to the building in 
solidarity with ERT workers.
"Some people will be held accountable before history and future 
generations," she said.
Under lender pressure, the government singled out ERT as a paragon of 
public waste and mismanagement in Greece.
Still, the decision to silence ERT and fire its 2,600 employees to please 
EU/IMF lenders shocked many in Greece and reduced Samaras's majority in 
the 300-seat parliament to five.
The Democratic Left party, which quit the coalition in protest, accused 
the government on Thursday of being "autocratic" in implementing reforms 
and of "violently restructuring state TV".
The government has since launched a new television channel called Public 
TV, or DT, in which about 600 people have been hired, many of them from 
the defunct ERT.
A message on ERT's Facebook page calling for people to protest in 
solidarity read: "It's time to act. Rally now!"
The main opposition Syriza party denounced the police raid as 
authoritarian and said it was just a precursor for the tough, new 
austerity measures the government was preparing.
"You break into state television headquarters in the middle of the night 
to do the same (later) to indebted people's homes and put them up for 
auction," said Syriza chief Alexis Tsipras.
Samaras's government said it was not worried about the confidence vote. 
"You have given the government a very good opportunity to prove that its 
majority is strong and cohesive," Administration Reform Minister Kyriakos 
Mitsotakis said in reply to Tsipras.
Reuters


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/police-storm-exgreek-state-
broadcaster-ert-break-up-sitin-20131108-2x4x5.html#ixzz2k2Zm1bWK


my radio shack: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/zliangas/album/282394
http://delicious.com/gr_greek1/zak (all my pages )





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