Archieven juli 2022

Assange at the European Parliament: we do not yet know anything about Panama papers.
“We gathered here today to talk about the most important issue for humanity”, said the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange during his intervention at the workshop for An alternative media landscape for Europe, an initiative of the MEPs of GUE/NGL Curzio Maltese, Stelios Kouloglou and Miguel Urban. Referring to the revelations of the Panama papers he said that not all the information has been published due to fear. As he said, the oligarchs use “legal loopholes” and the publication of information can result in exorbitant costs for the whistleblowers. He also added that: “The new political vibrancy that we are seeing in the US, that we have seen in Spain with the rise of Podemos that we have seen in Greece with Syriza are coming about precisely because the communications revolution of the internet is breaking down the traditional gate keeping function of the establishment of the press.”

Asked by the MEP of SYRIZA, Stelios Kouloglou, chairing the panel discussion, if after all he has been through after the revelations of WikiLeaks and after his long confinement in the Embassy of Ecuador, if it still worth the price, Julian Assange replied, “if you believe in something that has universal value, then it’s worth it.”

Creating a European network of independent broadcasting media, and with the contribution of the European Left group, proposed via skype the Greek journalist and director of the radio station Sto Kokkino, Kostas Arvanitis, “a network that will have a cooperative shape and promotes a left glimpse of news.”

For “triangle of destruction” spoke the Greek journalist of tvxs.gr, Panagiotis Konstantinou, speaking about the “excellent cooperation” and the interrelation between oligarchs, governments and banks that led to the crisis of journalism in recent years in Greece and brought the country in 2014 to the 99th position in the list of Journalists without Borders for the press Freedom.

“The transformation of the media world and the end of paper journalism in benefit of the Internet, have consequences that we still can not evaluate and we underestimate” said the Italian MEP and journalist Curzio Maltese underlining the importance of press freedom for Europe.

The Turkish journalist of the online newspaper Haberdar, Sezin Oney Goksen, said that the Internet is currently the main means of information for 88% of the urban population of Turkey and identified the government media as “genetically modified media” because they claim to be journalists while in reality they do public relations for the government, without bits of truth, terrible sensationalism and hate preaching.

The Italian journalist, president of the European media Initiative and representative of the citizens’ initiative for the pluralism of information, Giovanni Melogli, gave evidence that the number of foreign correspondents in Brussels has declined since 2015, from 1300 to 900. He noted the need to start at the European Parliament a discussion on a public television that will not be subject to the requirements of the market.

Public funding for quality information and education of citizens, with the contribution also of the European Parliament, suggested the Italian journalist Gad Lerner while the founder and chief editor of the Spanish online newspaper, Eldiario.es, Ignacio Escolar, analysed the crisis of journalism in Spain, where from 2008 to 2015 twelve thousand journalists have lost their jobs and newspaper sales fell by 40%.

Present were also the MEP of SYRIZA Konstantina Kouneva, AKEL MEP Takis Hadjigeorgiou and the independent MEP Sofia Sakorafa.

video: Vasileios Katsardis
Βίντεο: Βασίλης Κατσαρδής