Greece: Free Speech on Trial

In Greece, some citizens are paying a heavy price for their government's hard line on Macedonia. In particular, freedom of expression has been abrogated through an intensive campaign which combines propaganda and a series of extraordinary criminal prosecutions for dissenters. Indeed, the first thing a visitor sees going through customs at the Athens airport is a series of posters in English proclaiming "Macedonia was, is, and will be Greek." We summarize the criminal prosecutions below.