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Culture Ministry repeals decision to accept funding for Delos after gang-rape case

The Culture Ministry has announced plans to repeal a decision accepting a donation from a private foundation that has recently become the subject of controversy following a high-profile gang-rape case in the northern port city of Thessaloniki. The donation was aiming to revamp the museum on the island of Delos.

The decision to turn down the grant from the International Foundation for Greece (IFG) for a new museum and other work at the Archaeological Site of Delos was announced on Tuesday evening, kathimerini and other media reported.

The Culture Ministry decision comes in the wake of reactions concerning the fact that one of the chief suspects accused of the gang-rape of a 24-year-old woman at a New Year’s party in a Thessaloniki hotel is a member of the IFG’s board and of the family that founded it.

The ministry’s decision also came in response to an announcement from the opposition SYRIZA party indicating that any links between the suspect and efforts to revamp Delos “will prompt significant developments that the culture minister must respond to.” SYRIZA MP Sia Anagnostopoulou said that the Ministry has to revoke the decision to accept the sponsorship and to terminate any kind of cooperation with the said Foundation, until the case is clarified.

Delos, a protected island in the Aegean Sea, was the spiritual center of the ancient Greek world and is one of the country’s most important archaeological sites.

The Culture Ministry’s repeal of the December 31 decision to accept the IFG donation will be formally published in the Government Gazette, it said.

Worth noting that prior to the Culture ministry decision to repeal accepting the funding, it was a union of workers at the  the ministry who called on Minister Lina Mendoni to cancel the funding. According to the union the IFG foundation was established in 2014 with main aim to fund the new Museum on Delos.

Last February, the Culture Minister came under an extreme difficult situation when the artistic director of the National Theater Dimitris Lignadis was arrested for rape and has been in prison ever since pending trial.

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