Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis is escorted by
plain-clothed police officers to the public prosecutor in Athens.
Journalism is often either invested with magic powers or
blamed for all that is wrong in the world. Both positions are wrong. Journalism
is the way, lonely most of the times, of truth. Often colleagues discuss
journalistic objectivity as a mausoleum where we kneel down. There is no
objectivity. What matters is the decency of our subjectivity: how decent,
honest and professional we stay in a world where everything is relative. How
determined we are to fight against set-ups in this world of overloaded information.
It is often said: "Journalism is printing what someone
else does not want to print. Everything else is public relations." This
has to be done with respect for human rights and people's dignity. Nevertheless
it has to be done.
For the past few years, journalism in Greece has had nothing
to do with the truth. A corrupted elite rules the country. At its centre lie
businessmen who are unaccountable. They act as they please and usually make
deals with the government. The politicians then legislate as if they were
common mobsters, in order to serve and many times legitimise those businessmen.
In the end, the journalists reveal nothing.
There are countless examples. My arrest is one of them. For
two years the government stubbornly refused to use the Lagarde list of possible
tax dodgers. When I published it, I was arrested by the special branch and led
to court. I was acquitted but the district attorney's office cancelled the
court's decision as it was probably expecting a different one. Around the same
time, the Guardian disclosed the fact that the Greek police had tortured
individuals. The Greek media did not mention anything. The Greek minister came
to sue the newspaper on account of telling the truth.
A few days earlier, Hot Doc, the magazine I publish, had
revealed the fact that the director of New Democracy, the political party that
is led by the Greek prime minister, had been an affiliate of the Greek junta.
The government refused to answer. The Greek media made no reference to this
fact. Yet the Greek constitution demands respect to the press.
The Greek Republic has become a crossbred republic. You have
the right to vote every four years, but those who govern pass provocative laws,
for which the public will hear nothing from the media. The ministers themselves
are in a constant state of impunity because of a phenomenal law that grants
them immunity.
Media barons work in close partnership with the political
system. They define what is legal and what should become known to the public.
Recently, Reuters had a very harsh experience after trying to conduct a
research on the state of the Greek media. An attack was launched against
Reuters to make it appear as if wanted to destroy Greece.
It is often said in Greece that there is no muzzling of the
press since Vaxevanis can write whatever he wants. But freedom of the press is
not defined by a snapshot of the greater narrative but by the environment in
which journalism can operate.
We launched Hot Doc exactly one year ago. Apart from the
legal adventures we have faced so far, they've also tried to make us appear as
journalists of a specific political shade, unreliable and collaborating with
the secret services. Five people attacked me in my home and the Greek police
made it look like an attempted burglary. They try to intimidate and eliminate
any independent voice. Even though Greeks are eating from the garbage bins, the
Greek National Council for Radio and Television prohibited TV from showing
pictures of poverty.
We live in a European Union of stark contrasts. Europe
cannot overlook its culture or its tradition of freedom. I'm proud I was born
in a country that gave birth to democracy and civilisation. But democracy is
like bicycle: if you don't move forward, you will fall. Journalism today is not
about recording the facts. It ought to be a battle against barbarity and
obscurity. On this continent we must rediscover the universal ideas and of
course the role of journalism.
On 6 June I will stand trial again for the disclosure of the
Lagarde list. I don't know what the outcome of the trial will be. I want to
state that if I am going to be convicted I will not appeal but I will ask to be
put in jail. I want to be a journalist in a country that is not afraid of the
truth. I care for the truth of the people not that of a caste of corrupted
politicians and businessmen. I do not want the people of my country to read
foreign newspapers to learn what happened in their own country, as it was
happening during the junta. I don't want myself or any other journalist to in danger,
because of what I reveal. I don't want to be in danger of being presented as a
"suspicious" journalist, just for stating self-evident facts, by the
very propagandists of the power structure that brought my country on the edge.
I want to be able to say what I think without the risk of my physical or
psychological damage.
They want a journalism that is muzzled, we want a socially
sensitive and truthful journalism.
Greek investigative journalist Kostas Vaxevanis was awarded
the 2012 Index on Censorship Journalism award, sponsored by the Guardian. This
is an extract from his acceptance speech
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