“Anyone who attempts to prevent a third-country national from legally entering the country will face prosecution, arrest, and then criminal proceedings under the anti-racism law,” Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis announced in an interview with Action24 TV on Thursday night.
The Minister was referring to the incident on the island of Syros on July 22, when pro-Palestinian protesters hindered Israeli tourists from disembarking from an Israeli-flagged cruise ship.
“A prosecutor should have intervened,” Chrysochoidis said.
However, it should be recalled that it was clear that there was a police force at the port that was cordoned for security reasons and the protesters were at a distance. Ultimately it was also clear that it was the decision of the cruise ship captain to cancel disembarkation having evaluated the situation as “dangerous” for the 1,700 tourists and leave the island earlier than scheduled. Furthermore, residents and local businessmen on Syros were angry about the traffic restrictions and a parking ban for 12 hours so that the Israeli tourists can roam around in …safety.
KTG reported extensively on the Syros incident HERE.
Minister Chrysochoidis did not take the several and multifaceted factors into consideration but lined up with the official Greek government policy to defend Israel and protect its citizens.
Characteristic of the Greek policy was that Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis apologized for the incident on Syros writing on X:
“Today’s events in Syros are shameful for Greece. We owe an apology to those friends of Greece who chose to spend their holidays here and who were forcibly denied permission by some. This event should neither harm our relations with @IsraelinGreece nor the love of Israeli tourists for Greece. Our country remains hospitable to all and anti-Semitism has no place here!”
In his interview Minister Chrysochoidis stressed that people in Greece can freely exercise their constitutional right for protests and recalling “522 protest rallies to the Israeli embassy”. People can demonstrate “but beyond a certain point onward, when this becomes attacks against third-country nationals or Greek citizens on grounds of discrimination, then in that case, they do indeed take on a racist character and are racist attacks.”
As there is no legal base to punish people ‘hindering third-country citizens from legally entering Greece,” with one sentence the Minister activated the anti-racism law.
“This is a full application of the anti-racism law, and in this specific case, the prosecutors’ office should have pressed charges against them, arrested them and pressed charges. Whenever a similar incident occurs again, the anti-racism law will be enforced, and whenever such a phenomenon resurfaces, arrests will be made,” the minister threatened.
PS As the Minister said also that there has been arrangement with the shipping Minister on the issue, KTG understands that the anti-racism law will be activated if there are protests and incidents with Israeli cruise ship tourists. Go figure…
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Shameless fascist government
There are videos available of the activists, which means that the persons can be traced and charged as appropriate, if there really is the will to do this. What about the port police that was there and did nothing? Is there going to be an investigation about that?
a peaceful demonstration doesn’t sit well with “Charlie”?
Is Charlie a fascist?
Is it not rascist for israelis to be slaughtering Palestinian on the basis of their ethnicity and religion?The only cause of shame for greece is that it stands by and does nothing to stop israel ethnically cleansing palestine
Who told you these lies? Hamas propaganda? Nobody is killing Arabs only for being Arabs based on their ethnicity or religion, but they have been killing Israelis for being Jews. This is what is called genocide! Learn some history. By the way, many Arabs serve in the IDF protecting their country from terrorists.
blaming critics of following Hamas propaganda doesn’t help much the argumentation. Furthermore, it’s not a secret who funded Hamas in the beginning to create a front against Arafat, the PLO etc.
Have you read my message or just the first two sentences? Phlipperz & Co blames Israel for killing Arabs on the basis of ethnicity and religion which is a blatant lie. One more time, Its the opposite… the Arabs, and not only HamasNazi, have been killing Israelis ONLY for being Jews…
have you ever asked yourself if you could be the one who believes lies and propaganda?
Charged for what, exactly??? For protesting the genocide being carried out with impunity by Israel???? And on what basis should the port police, in your opinion, have done anything to restrict a legal protest?