Greece convicted on the religious oath

A couple days ago I read on the site of the Greek Helsinki Monitor, a NGO on Human Rights, of a piece of news which I must admit didn’t displease me at all! The European Court of Human Rights, (whose jurisdiction is acknowledged by Greece), convicted the Greek Goverment on it’s insistence on forcing people to take a religious oath inside the courtrooms.

The Jews of Ioannina on Sky TV

Νέοι Φάκελοι/New Folders is a television program in Greece which presents various documentaries on current and past issues pertaining greek interest. On Jan 29 they broadcasted a 16min documentary on the destiny of the Jews of Ioannina during the Holocaust/Shoah. It hosted testimonies of survivors of the camps, interviews of christian and jewish greeks, photos of the actual deportation as it was immortalised by the Propaganda Office of the German Army and included the prickly issue of the post war problems that Ioanniote jews faced after the return from the camps.

An interview to Alexis Tsipras/ Μια συνέντευξη στον Αλέξη Τσίπρα

Synaspismos/SYRIZA is a greek political party which locates itself in the political space of the broader Left. Its current leader, Mr Alavanos, has decided recently to step down after a streak of positive electoral results and had indicated as his replacement a young politician named Alexis Tsipras, while also another party member Mr.Kouvelis had declared that he will run for the presidency. I thought it would be interesting to hear the views of the two candidates on a series of questions pertaining interest jewish greek interest so I asked for a written interview through the email of both candidates. Mr Tsipras has been kind enough to answer and here’s the results. :)

The interview is in greek; I apologize to my English readers but I felt it was necessary to preserve the original feel of the answers which of course were in greek, since the purpose of this interview was to make known the views of the candidates to the presidency to their jewish greek audience. Again I would like to thank Mr.Tsipras for his availability and Mrs. Panagiota M. For taking care of the email.