EGN NEWS DESK
Three enormous instances have examined the nation’s perception in its judicial constructions over the previous couple of years. Two of them are associated to disasters: A prepare crash in February 2023 that killed 57, and a shipwreck off Greece’s Peloponnesian coast final summer time that left lots of of Asian and African migrants presumed drowned.
The different is a sprawling spyware and adware scandal that has embroiled the federal government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Last week, a supreme court docket prosecutor cleared the nation’s politicians, police and intelligence providers of wrongdoing.
In isolation, these might appear to be the kind of unlucky incidents that any authorities may need to take care of.
But their dealing with has raised disturbing questions. Opposition events, victims teams and unbiased investigators speak of cover-ups and allege essential witnesses have been blocked, authorized paperwork have been ignored and victims sidelined. Parliamentary probes have achieved little however muddy the waters.
“By giving a misleading impression of a well-functioning democracy, with parliamentary inquiry committees unable to successfully conduct their work, what is definitely taking place generally quantities to direct political meddling and the neutralizing of unbiased watchdogs’ members,” stated Vas Panagiotopoulos, who covers Greece for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a non-profit group that defends press freedoms.
Beyond the most important examples, Greeks understand that public requirements have eroded, whereby verbal assaults on journalists from high-ranking politicians have change into commonplace, unbiased authorities are undermined, a number of migrant pushbacks have been alleged, police brutality is rising, and civil society and media pluralism is underneath risk.
