Infamous D.Liakopoulos strikes a deal with Antenna TV

For some time now it has been rumored that Dimosthenis Liakopoulos, a TV salesman specializing in selling apocryphistic books – full of conspiracy theories, «Hellenic Truth» and good ol’anti-jewish hate speech, was close in making the leap from the tenths of small local TV stations where he currently appears to a big national TV channel.

Well it’s now a fact: the man who created a ludicrous parallel mythology where the greek race of the El fights against the zionist Nefelim & contemporaneously warns us of the evil Satan-induced zionism, appears regularly in Antenna TV whose ratings place him first or second place among national tv stations. Information (1, 2 in Cyprous also) says that he’ll manage the 2am-4am zone of the station with complete editorial freedom, but as the picture shows he has already began.

I would like to clear one thing: Antenna TV is not performing anything illegal – it is a private TV station which aims in making money and D.Liakopoulos is completely free in circulating his ideas. But the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the Press is not the shield which allows the Press to avoid criticism; in this case Antenna TV has every legal right to sell air-time to D.Liakopoulos but also I have every right to consider this decision as hateful and deeply troubling. I do not think that the political views of Antenna have anything to do with the decision and clearly reject the notion that this decision is based on any kind of anti-jewish prejudice. But the fact that Mr.Liakopoulos appears regularly in small national channel Makedonia TV, also owned by Antenna TV, makes me wonder on the limits Antenna TV has or if indeed the owner of Antenna, Mr.Kyriakou – president of the Greek Olympic Committee, is in agreement with views which are chauvinistic…

I wonder: would Antenna TV sell air-time to a Mr.Dimitras denouncing civil rights violations? I sincerely doubt it, given the systematic denial to report on Human and Civil Rights violations in Greece, eg the most important judicial case of last year – the conviction of neo-nazi Mr.Plevris. Then why does he allow D.Liakopoulos to promote nationalism and lies? Is the money this important in allowing him to drag the station in his fantasy world where blatant antisemitism is one of it’s major characteristics?

Whether D.Liakopoulos continues his shows on Antenna TV is not what truly troubles me – it is the growing popularity of the conspiracy theories and the lack of opposition by the civil society. Another tele-evangelist, K.Velopoulos even became a parliamentarian for extreme-right, populistic LAOS party.  Is D.Liakopoulos only a clown that many picture him to be? Is it unlikely that his antisemitic views on the Jews find their way in prime-time national TV in a year or two? While many laugh at Mr.Liakopoulos and make fun of him, and God only knows how ridiculous his views are, he has managed to thrive and he is not that far away from becoming mainstream – one could claim that he is the living example of the deterioration of greek public speech and triumph of conspirationalism. And if you think that I’m exaggerating let me remind you that recently the ruling party’s (Nea Dimokratia) MP Yakumatos accused Prime Minister Simitis of being the «Arch-Priest of Judaism«, while LAOS party-leader Mr.Karatzaferis openly praised inside the Greek Parliament the divinative powers of the notoriously antisemitic book The Protocols of the Elders of Zions – all this without a single person rising to condemn them.

I do not advocate or demand stopping his program because he advances antisemitic views – this would be wrong – but I do believe that democratic citizens should create a moral consensus that hate speech is not wanted in Greece. The media must understand that they are free to promote whichever ideology they want but they shall be judged according to their editorial policy and the message it conveys – in this case I can only deduct that Antenna TV is indifferent to antisemitism and has no problem promoting it. I simply hope that Antenna TV decides to stop transmitting his shows not because they fear negative publicity but because they actually think it over and decide that Mr.Liakopoulos is not in line with their editorial policy and ethics.

ps. Let’s not forget that D.Liakopulos is responsible for the first blogger trial in Greece, bringing to trial an RSS aggregator (!) because it reproduced the feed from funEL blog. More on the subject on the site of the accused – other opinions in nicolas manie, Jungle report, λαπουτα, Jim.