Evading the parliament, is evading democracy

Now in Greece laws are canceled without the approval of the parliament. Evading the parliament, is evading democracy. This has led to the shutting of the Greek national broadcaster. Solidarity is the only way to reverse this.

The facts

On the evening of June 11th the Greek Government spokesman, with no previous notice, announced that by midnight of that same day the national broadcaster (ERT) would be shut down and all its employees (2656 people) would be laid off. This was done without the approval of the parliament, by using an article of the Greek Constitution that allows governments to make law in “extraordinary” and “unpredictable” (e.g. earthquakes) events. By no means shutting down the national public broadcaster is an “unpredictable” event. It is just something that the largest party (ND) of the government coalition could not pass through the parliament. The ND party knows that it wont get approval, as the other two parties of the coalition openly and officially disagree with this action, and protest that in case of a vote in parliament they will definitely vote against.

A few hours later police units entered ERT’s broadcasting center. The digital television signal was violently interrupted around 23:15 of that evening. The employees of ERT together with employees from the public Hellenic Telecommunications Organization cooperated in solidarity to re-establish the connection and allow ERT to broadcast again. At the same time a spontaneous movement of protest, powered by the dismay of people throughout Greece about what had just happened, begun. Tens of thousands of people went to the central building of ERT in Athens to express their support to the employees and their outrage for this act of constitutional violation by the Government. Currently, the European Broadcaster’s Union (EBU) and numerous private broadcasters stream ERT’s signal to allow the employees to reach as much people as possible and let them know what is happening.