Dear Madam / Sir,

We address you regarding the above mentioned subject because we believe that the blatant violation of the Greek state’s obligations for the fight against anti-Semitism within European Union and at international level, has very serious consequences for the whole of Europe, as we will explain below. Greece is the first country in Europe after the Second World War where the Supreme Court legalised the open crude call for realisation of genocide against the Jewish citizens of this particular country but also the Jewish all over Europe.

We address you on behalf of Antinazi Initiative, an organisation of citizens that has office in Athens, was founded in June 1997 and is activated in the fight against neonazism, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the Greek society. You can find more information about us and our activities in our web page “www.antinazi.gr”.

With this letter we want to denounce the fact that the Greek state whitewashed nazism morally, politically and legally through the trial of Kostas Plevris, widely known as the leading voice of neonazism in our country. As if this was not enough, the Greek state proceeded to the prosecution of the three members of Antinazi Initiative that were witnesses for the prosecution in above trial.

Kostas Plevris was a founding cadre of Greek party Popular Orthodox Alarm (LA.O.S) which has 15 Deputies in the Greek Parliament. This party holds also a seat in the European Parliament.
K. Plevris had participated in the European elections of 1999 in cooperation with the also openly neonazi and criminally violent organisation “Golden Dawn”.

The outline of this trial has as follows:

In May 2006 K. Plevris wrote a book of 1400 pages titled “Jews, the whole Truth”, which has sold until now thousands of copies and could be found at the bigger bookshops of Athens. In this book K. Plevris calls blatantly for a new extermination of the Jews, threatens the democratic citizens with “the gallows”, praises the atrocities of the Third Reich, and tries to “prove” for which reasons Greece and the whole Europe should be released from the “sub-humans” and “treacherous” Jews!!!
Through the pages of the book the writer prompts to racist violence and hatred against the Jews reviving the cannibalistic Hitler type anti-Semitism.

We cite here just few of these extracts:

“That’s what the Jews deserve. For it’s the only way they understand: firing squad within 24 hours...”
“My book, which you are now reading is a simple proof that we don’t count on the Jews. We despise them for their morality, for their religion, for their deeds, which all prove that they are sub-humans”.
“I mostly challenge you, my readers, to discuss about Talmud and the Jewish religion. It is you that I challenge the most, for you are the victims. Wake up, the treacherous Jews are digging a pit for the Nations. Wake up and throw them in, for they deserve it...”
“Jew (in religion) and human are contradicting terms, that is the one excludes the other”
“Hitler had been accused for something that indeed never happened. History of mankind will accuse him for having done nothing to relieve Europe from Jews, though he could...
“I declare frankly, elsewhere too, that if the Germans had put Jewish Zionists to death, I - and I do not believe I am alone in this – would not be sorry. Jewish Zionists are criminals preparing our death. The annihilation of the White Race which they have hated so much, with envy compressed in their subconscious, for centuries. Our Race's instinct for survival points to the way of war to the death against Jewish Zionism”.
“I stop at the historical truth that teaches the moral superiority of National Socialism”.
“National-Socialism is an ideology for “masters”, not for slaves. It is the faith of superior people...I cannot bear to see the murderers, bandits, rapists, oppressors, pests, corruptors, sappers of the ruffian Jewry, slandering the superior National-Socialists...”
“In 1945 the White Race suffered the greatest catastrophe in its history. Hitlerian Germany's epic struggle for dominance by Aryans ended without a Victory”.
“...Surely the truth is restored little by little, the propaganda retreats and the day will come when the banners of Nazism wave”.

The Antinazi Initiative, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece and the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) submitted complaints against K. Plevris in accordance with the antiracist law of our country.

The result of the trials that followed and which lasted almost two and a half years, was the acquittal of K. Plevris.
In these trials most of the judges and public prosecutors turned the prosecution’s witnesses into defendants. These same judges and public prosecutors acknowledged the book of Plevris to be a “scientific work” and the result of “historical” research!!!
Furthermore, they themselves have taken a series of pronounced anti-Semitic positions and actually some of them in enthusiastic support of K. Plevris.
For example, a public prosecutor who was the first to characterize the nazi writer as a “scientist” and his book of holocaust denial as a “scientific writing”, addressed to us who sign this letter and were witnesses for the prosecution with the following question in the court room to support his argument that also the Nazis had the right to express their “views”: «Would you like to be judged and convicted by a nazi court;» When we testified for the extract of the book where the writer asked to re-open Auschwitch, the chairman of the bench became sarcastic saying: “So what, they can build a new one, can’t they? How difficult is it?”.
In the book a photograph of Jewish children kept hostage in Auschwitch is published. The defamatory subtitle under the photograph reads: “We see them fat enough”. Another public prosecutor involved in the trial “acquitted” the defendant for this raw offence of the victims of Holocaust on the grounds of the following reasoning: “Here the writer simply comments their good physical situation”! The same one accepted as valid the reference made in the book to “the Protocols of the Elders of Zion” (widely known as forgery), as book of the Jews!!!
A judge of the Appeals Court characterized the criminal ideology of National Socialism as “historical political system” and adopted a series of more pronounced anti-Semitic positions in favour of K. Plevris.

The political atmosphere during the trial and the day after

During the whole trial, two well – known cadres and MPs of the far-right party LAOS (Popular Orthodox Alarm) enthusiastically supported Kostas Plevris. These are Adonis Georgiadis who advertised the book repeatedly from the Greek television saying that it is his “favourite” and Thanassis Plevris, son of K Plevris, who was his defence advocate. The MP Thanassis Plevris asked from the court the acquittal of the defendant saying that it is the democratic right of each citizen to call for the extermination of any population and the re-opening of Auschwitch (!) At the final phase of the trial, an article published at LAOS weekly newspaper by its President George Karatzaferis, closed with the statement that the “Jew smells blood” (!).
At the same time all of the other parliamentary parties not only hushed up the trial protecting K. Plevris and LAOS, but used the influence they have on the television media in order to impose the absolute silence around this trial. Thus, the horrid scandal of the anti-Semitic positions of the judges was concealed from the Greek people, and so it was also concealed that members of the Greek Parliament have expressed positions in favour of nazism.

The consequence of such an attitude of the political world was the final acquittal of Kostas Plevris, from the Athens Court of Appeals (March 2009) as well as from the Supreme Court of our country, the “Areios Pagos” (May 2010) with decisions that include plenty of anti-Semitic arguments. The major scandal for our country and for the whole Europe is the reasoning of both judgments: of the Appeals Court and of the Supreme Court. Both these judgments justify the racist violence against the Jews as well as the nazi genocide as follows: “the defendant does not turn against the Jews, solely on the grounds of their racial and national origin but mainly on the grounds of their objectives for world domination, the methods that they use for the realisation of these and their conspiratorial action” (!!!)

The above cited phrase of the reasoning of the judgement means that the Greek justice with the full support of the Greek political system as a whole did not just acquit a nazi writer but legally, politically and morally acquitted Nazism per se, and defended the core of Nazism, that is, genocidal anti-Semitism.

The next step after this provocative acquittal was the criminal charges brought against us. Specifically, the public prosecutor’s office of Athens submitted to trial three members of Antinazi Initiative, that is, us who were witnesses for the prosecution in the K. Plevris trial. We were accused “for propagation of false news which could cause unrest to citizens regarding the impartiality of the Greek judicial system”. This prosecution was made because Antinazi Initiative repeatedly and publicly denounced the anti-Semitic and pro-nazi positions of the judges. The public prosecutor’s office of Athens called the nazi K. Plevris as witness for the prosecution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our trial has been fixed for 22 September 2010.

So it is that sixty five years after the end of the WWII, a European state, Greece, justifies through the judicial authorities the genocide of Jews, acquits the most horrid manifestation of nazism, and leads to the defendant’s stand, the democratically minded citizens who resist to this provocation for all European citizens.

During these two and a half years of K. Plevris’ trial, the Antinazi Initiative gave a persistent struggle in order to shed light on this issue as a major political issue for political democracy in our country and in all Europe. In particular, in each stage of the trial we issued repeatedly press releases, we informed for the process of the trial, we reported about the court hearings and we denounced to the supreme judicial disciplinary bodies certain judges who took anti-Semitic positions. Following the acquittal decision of the Athens Court of Appeal, we launched a pan-european campaign in order to overturn the decision, with which we called Greek and European democratically minded people to protest to the Greek Government. This campaign had a very broad and enthusiastic response. Nevertheless, the Greek Supreme Court recently, on May 2010 validated the acquittal decision of the Athens Court of Appeal. This struggle should now continue.

Therefore, we ask you to denounce the above decision of the Greek Supreme Court, to demand the acquittal of the members of the Antinazi Initiative on the trial of September 22, 2010 and to make this letter as widely known as possible.
We are at your disposal for any further clarification, data, discussion, supporting documents etc.

Respectfully yours,

On behalf of the Antinazi Initiative

Anna Stai
Irene Koutelou