Greece: German Documentary Journalists Arbitrarily Detained In Samos Island
Location: Greece, Samos
Date: October 23, 2020
On 19 October 2020, a German media crew making a documentary about climate-induced migration on the Greek island of Samos were detained for seven hours, strip searched and held in jail without charges over their use of a filming drone.
Manolo Ty, a well-known German photographer and Berlin-based video editor Larissa Rausch were walking in the streets of Samos with two local journalists working on the environmental change and refugee section of their documentary when they were stopped by police officers accused of being a “spy”. They were also not allowed to see their lawyers as their equipment was confiscated. The journalists were released after eight hours without any charges.
German Consul of Greece was informed of the incident which is shocking that happened in a EU member state.
Manolo spoke with Parallaximag and talked about the details of the arbitrary detention: “We asked for a lawyer, but we were denied. We then sent some emergency messages to various news organizations and to AFP working with lawyers around the world when journalists are facing similar problems. Suddenly they took our phones, they did not let us communicate with each other, they did not even give us food. For 8 hours they kept us and we did not know what was happening. We asked them if we had been arrested and they said no. We asked them to leave and they replied that they could not leave us. So, we asked them why we can not call a lawyer? And they told us that we do not need a lawyer as we are not accused of anything. Eventually, two lawyers came, but even there things got weird, as they closed the doors by force, locked us in an office, did not let us talk to them. I never thought in my life that I would have such an attitude in a European country. It happened to me years ago in Pakistan, but I am really shocked that something like this happened in Greece.”The Coalition For Women In Journalism is utterly concerned about the arbitrary detention practice in Greece, especially against foreign journalists. Back in August, Turkish journalists Berçem Mordeniz and Çağdaş Kaplan were detained in Athens while they were recording police violence in front of Athens police station. They too were not allowed their lawyers for hours and suffered from mistreatment at the hands of Greek police. Such treatment of journalists in a country that prides itself on being the birthplace of democracy is unacceptable. We expect better from the Greek authorities and demand such practices are discontinued.
The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.
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