REPORTS
Complaints of police violence towards journalists during the coverage of a strike in Thessaloniki
On 13 March 2024, the Journalists Union of Macedonia and Thrace (ESIEM-Th) thdenouncede obstruction of journalists at work by the police authorities during the coverage of a nationwide strike in Thessaloniki on February 28, marking the one-year anniversary of the Tempi train accident.
The Union expressed dismay at the obstruction of journalistic work by police authorities through physical violence and threats of legal action, adding that the targeting of journalists by state bodies that have an obligation to facilitate their work, is a practice that puts journalists working in the information sector at immediate risk. On March 2, 2024, the Union of Police Officers of Thessaloniki issued a statement, which it posted on its Facebook page, claiming that journalists were attempting to create an “anti-police” climate in the service of interests other than information or news. The statement was later withdrawn.
The incident was recorded as a “violation of media freedom” by the Mapping Media Freedom reporting mechanism, which is an initiative of the European Centre for Press & Media Freedom – ECPMF. In its report, Mapping Media Freedom made special mention of an attack on the same day by riot police towards a reporter from the Proto Thema publication, Stratos Louvaris, an incident also reported by the protothema website.
Under the rule of law, individual rights are protected, as well as freedom of the press. Journalists have the right to exercise their profession freely and independently, without censorship, and without disproportionate and unjustified restrictions, in order to fully inform the public on issues of major public interest.
Despite the guarantee of freedom of the press under Article 14 para. 2 of the Constitution, in the case in question, the police authorities allegedly physically attacked journalists and threatened them with legal action, which far from facilitating, made it essentially impossible for the journalists to cover an issue of public interest.
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