Documento exclusion, Rigopoulos detention, and warrant against Vaxevanis downgraded Greece in v-dem’s Democracy Index

Persecutions of the Mitsotakis administration against Press Freedom and especially against Documento newspaper, now expose Greece internationally.

Α map published by the Guardian on the level of democracy in Europe in relation to the pandemic showed Greece in the worst recorded category of countries with the most violations of democratic rights. Authoritarian states such as Russia, Ukraine, or even Hungary, were recorded on a better level than Greece.

V-dem’s research, concerns the violations of democratic freedoms in relation to the practices and laws followed by each government in relation to the coronavirus pandemic in 144 countries throughout the world (without comparison to one another).

The embarrassing rating that Greece received from the survey, is mainly due to the restriction of the parliamentary process and the disheartening rating it collected in violations of freedom of the press.

The persecution of Documento, a criterion for the level of democracy in Greece

From the data, published in thousands of pages on Github platform, it seems that the Greek government’s prosecutions against Documento and its journalists were a serious criterion that weighed in the final negative position occupied by Greece.

Specifically, the exclusion of Documento from the state’s media financing, through the infamous Petsas List, the detention of journalist Tony Rigopoulos in November 2020 while reporting and the use of violence against him, as well as the arrest warrant against the publisher of Documento, Kostas Vaxevanis, were recorded and rated by the v-dem evaluators.

The detention of Tony Rigopoulos

The case of the detention of Documento and koutipandoras.gr journalist, Tony Rigopoulos during the coverage of a demonstration on November 17, 2020, is recorded and graded twice in the report for Greece.

Specifically, the case is recorded in the field of verbal harassment of a journalist, as well as in the field of physical harassment. In fact, it is the only case recorded in the report in terms of these two categories from March 2020 to June 2021.

According to the data of v-dem, the detention of Rigopoulos is the only case of obstruction of journalistic work using pandemic measures as an excuse, in Greece.

According to the report:    

“As the journalist was documenting the arrest of protesters, he was approached by traffic police officers, and despite the fact that he was wearing a full gas mask, police tried to fine him €300 under Covid-19 regulations for not wearing a surgical mask. The officers then brought him to the headquarters of the Traffic Police where Rigopoulos claims they addressed him in a threatening and abusive manner in an attempt to provoke him. He later reported that one officer pushed him forcefully into a chair and shouted aggressively in his face. Rigopoulos added that officers repeatedly refused to acknowledge his journalistic ID and took his national ID off him for about half an hour.”

The exclusion of Documento from state funding

V-dem detects multiple breaches concerning Limitations on access to information about Covid-19.

Regarding the exclusion of Documento and koutipandoras.gr from the financing of the media through the infamous Petsa list, the v-dem data states: “Opposition media outlets in July 2020 were excluded from a government support package in Greece: ”Greek newspaper Documento was excluded from a €20 million advertising revenue support package organised by the government in apparent retaliation for its critical coverage and investigative reports in the Prime Minister and his inner circle. When asked why Documento had not been received funding like every other major media outlet in the country, the government spokesman replied that the government did not give funding to outlets threat spread “fake news”.

Also, after a general reference about the decline of the county’s ranking in a Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, and the placement of ERT (public broadcaster) and AMNA (state news agency) under the PM’s supervision, v-dem records a series of violations related to the pandemic: For example, reference is made to the exclusion of journalists in the briefings of Sotiris Tsiodras (Chief Medical Advisor) at the Ministry of Health, but also to the unreasonable limitation of the number of questions that could be asked by any journalist during those briefings. “Journalists were informed that they will have the opportunity to ask one – and only one, although there are three speakers – question per week, which should be submitted in writing to the Press Office, which will read it on “air”, without it ability to clarify or apply pressure in order to respond effectively” the reports states.

Arrest warrant against Vaxevanis

The same category includes another brief reference to the arrest warrant issued against Documento publisher Kostas Vaxevanis.

The warrant was issued after Documento published a report about a protester allegedly being tortured by officers in Police headquarters. 

22 police officers then issued an official complaint to Vaxevanis. When their complaint was fully published by Documento, an arrest warrant was issued against Vaxevanis because… their names were visible.