Ad Hoc organising Committee
for Savas Michael-Matsas
and Constantino Moutzouris
PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ
Mobile: 07792 966 910
The Ambassador
H.E. Mr. Anastase Scopelitis
Greek Embassy in London
1A Holland Park,
31 August 2013
Dear Mr. Anastase Scopelitis,
We, the undersigned, are protesting today against of the trial of Savas Michael-Matsas a Greek Jewish Marxist intellectual and General Secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK) of Greece and Constantino Moutzouris, the former rector of the University of Athens, on 3 September 2013.
Savas Matsas is accused of “defamation” against the Greek openly Nazi party, the infamous Golden Dawn, for “instigation of violence and chaos” and “disruption of the civil peace” because, four years ago, in May 2009, the EEK had issued a leaflet calling for participation into an antifascist demonstration of protest against a murderous attack by the Nazis against the immigrant communities in Athens covered by the Greek police.
In December 2008, an important youth revolt had shaken the entire country following the murder of a 15 years old youth, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, by two police guards. The revolt continued for nearly for two months, in what Dominique Strauss Kahn, head of the IMF at that time, had rightly described as “the first political explosion of the current world financial-economic crisis”. The police pogroms against the immigrants reached a climax in spring
2009, in Athens, in the neighbourhood of Aghios Panteleimonas, where Golden Dawn thugs terrorised the immigrants with the support of the local police. Left organizations had called for anti-fascist demonstrations. The EEK took part and issued a leaflet calling on the people to participate. The leaflet signed by the EEK as a political party was also published in the party newspaper NEA PROOPTIKI and presented in the party’s web site. This is the “crime” for which the General Secretary of the EEK is accused and put on trial.
In May 2009, leading members of the Golden Dawn, including Ilias Panagiotaros, now a member of the Greek Parliament, and Themis Skordeli (a woman with dark connections with the underworld, who was accused of the assassination of an Afghan immigrant but who has never been charged), posed a lawsuit against the entire spectrum of the Greek left, from the Communist Party of Greece(KKE) and SYRIZA to the extra-parliamentary left, ANTARSYA and EEK, all the immigrant associations, and independent personalities like the Dean of
the National Technical University of Athens Constantinos Moutzouris (accused of allowing the alternative web site, Athens Indymedia, to broadcast from the space in the campus).
The lawsuit was not acted upon until late 2012, after the Greek elections of May and June 2012 when Golden Dawn was catapulted to Parliament from the margins of political life and the shadow of the State repressive apparatus. In November 2012, on the day celebrated nationally for decades now as the anniversary of the 1973 youth revolt in the Athens National Technical University(Polytechnic) against the military dictatorship of the colonels, the Greek police, after receiving orders from the judiciary, started interrogations of all the accused in the Nazi lawsuit of 2009. In June 2013, from the dozens of the accused in the legal action of 2009, and interrogated in 2012, only Savas Michael (Sabetai) Matsas of the EEK was called to trial on September 3, 2013, together with the former Dean C. Moutzouris.
Simultaneously with this preposterous “legal” action, the Nazi have intensified a non-stop, vicious anti-Semitic and anti-communist campaign against the Secretary of the EEK, accusing him of being “an instrument of the World Jewish Conspiracy to foment civil war among Greeks to impose a Judeo-Bolshevik regime in Greece”. Pictures of Savas Michael are presented combined with anti-Semitic insults and openly death threats: “Crush the Jewish vermin!”
We wish to express our total opposition to the Greek state and government collaboration with the Nazi Golden Dawn in bringing these persecutions.
We wish to express our outrage at the collaboration of the Greek state and government in failing to oppose and thereby collaborating with the vile anti-Semitic campaign against Savas Michael-Matsas and thereby against all Jews.
We demand that the charges against Savas Michael-Matsas and Constantino Moutzouris be dropped immediately and that the Greek state and government protect the immigrant community against the fascist assaults of the Golden Dawn and cease prosecuting their defenders.
Signed Organisation
Steve Hedley on behalf of the Rail and Maritime Union (UK)
Weyman Bennett on behalf of Unite Against Fascism (UAF, UK)
D.R. Rayner Lysaght on behalf of Socialist Democracy (Ireland)
David Yaffe on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Group (UK)
Michael Holden on behalf of the Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group (London, UK)
Michael Pröbsting on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, USA, Brazil and Austria)
Alex Steiner on behalf of permanent-revolution.org (USA)
Martin Ralph on behalf of the International Socialist League (British section of the LIT)
William Keats on behalf of the Communist Left (Australia)
Tony Gard on behalf of the Revolutionary Internationalist League (British Section of the ITC)
Movimiento Popular
Unificado (Panama)
Juan Marino and Lionel Zivals on behalf of Tendencia Piquetera Revolucionaria - TPR (Argentina)
Matías Mlotek on behalf of Frente de Estudiantes en Lucha - FEL (Argentina)
Daiana Asquini on behalf of Agrupación de Mujeres en Lucha - Las Piqueteras (Argentina)
Sirimal Peiris on behalf of Workers Voice (Sri Lanka)
Felicity Dowling
Cheshire West NUT Solidarity officer (UK)
Martin Jansen on behalf of the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG, South Africa)
Frank Fitzmaurice on behalf of the United Socialist Party (tUSP, UK)
Martin Thomas on behalf of the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL, UK)
Marcus Halaby on behalf of Workers Power (WP,UK)
John Byrne on behalf of the Anti Fascist Network (UK)
Mark Fischer on behalf of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB, Weekly Worker)
Antônio Junior on behalf of Vanguarda Metalúrgica (Brazil)
Humberto Rodrigues on behalf of the Communist League / Liaison Committee for the Fourth
International (LCFI, Brazil)
León Carlos on behalf of the Tendencia Militante Bolchevique (LCFI, Argentina)
Gerry Downing on behalf of Socialist Fight, (LCFI, UK)
Yours Sincerely on behalf of the Ad Hoc Committee
for Savas Michael-Matsas
and Constantino Moutzouris
PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ
Mobile: 07792 966 910
The Ambassador
H.E. Mr. Anastase Scopelitis
Greek Embassy in London
1A Holland Park,
31 August 2013
Dear Mr. Anastase Scopelitis,
We, the undersigned, are protesting today against of the trial of Savas Michael-Matsas a Greek Jewish Marxist intellectual and General Secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK) of Greece and Constantino Moutzouris, the former rector of the University of Athens, on 3 September 2013.
Savas Matsas is accused of “defamation” against the Greek openly Nazi party, the infamous Golden Dawn, for “instigation of violence and chaos” and “disruption of the civil peace” because, four years ago, in May 2009, the EEK had issued a leaflet calling for participation into an antifascist demonstration of protest against a murderous attack by the Nazis against the immigrant communities in Athens covered by the Greek police.
In December 2008, an important youth revolt had shaken the entire country following the murder of a 15 years old youth, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, by two police guards. The revolt continued for nearly for two months, in what Dominique Strauss Kahn, head of the IMF at that time, had rightly described as “the first political explosion of the current world financial-economic crisis”. The police pogroms against the immigrants reached a climax in spring
2009, in Athens, in the neighbourhood of Aghios Panteleimonas, where Golden Dawn thugs terrorised the immigrants with the support of the local police. Left organizations had called for anti-fascist demonstrations. The EEK took part and issued a leaflet calling on the people to participate. The leaflet signed by the EEK as a political party was also published in the party newspaper NEA PROOPTIKI and presented in the party’s web site. This is the “crime” for which the General Secretary of the EEK is accused and put on trial.
In May 2009, leading members of the Golden Dawn, including Ilias Panagiotaros, now a member of the Greek Parliament, and Themis Skordeli (a woman with dark connections with the underworld, who was accused of the assassination of an Afghan immigrant but who has never been charged), posed a lawsuit against the entire spectrum of the Greek left, from the Communist Party of Greece(KKE) and SYRIZA to the extra-parliamentary left, ANTARSYA and EEK, all the immigrant associations, and independent personalities like the Dean of
the National Technical University of Athens Constantinos Moutzouris (accused of allowing the alternative web site, Athens Indymedia, to broadcast from the space in the campus).
The lawsuit was not acted upon until late 2012, after the Greek elections of May and June 2012 when Golden Dawn was catapulted to Parliament from the margins of political life and the shadow of the State repressive apparatus. In November 2012, on the day celebrated nationally for decades now as the anniversary of the 1973 youth revolt in the Athens National Technical University(Polytechnic) against the military dictatorship of the colonels, the Greek police, after receiving orders from the judiciary, started interrogations of all the accused in the Nazi lawsuit of 2009. In June 2013, from the dozens of the accused in the legal action of 2009, and interrogated in 2012, only Savas Michael (Sabetai) Matsas of the EEK was called to trial on September 3, 2013, together with the former Dean C. Moutzouris.
Simultaneously with this preposterous “legal” action, the Nazi have intensified a non-stop, vicious anti-Semitic and anti-communist campaign against the Secretary of the EEK, accusing him of being “an instrument of the World Jewish Conspiracy to foment civil war among Greeks to impose a Judeo-Bolshevik regime in Greece”. Pictures of Savas Michael are presented combined with anti-Semitic insults and openly death threats: “Crush the Jewish vermin!”
We wish to express our total opposition to the Greek state and government collaboration with the Nazi Golden Dawn in bringing these persecutions.
We wish to express our outrage at the collaboration of the Greek state and government in failing to oppose and thereby collaborating with the vile anti-Semitic campaign against Savas Michael-Matsas and thereby against all Jews.
We demand that the charges against Savas Michael-Matsas and Constantino Moutzouris be dropped immediately and that the Greek state and government protect the immigrant community against the fascist assaults of the Golden Dawn and cease prosecuting their defenders.
Signed Organisation
Steve Hedley on behalf of the Rail and Maritime Union (UK)
Weyman Bennett on behalf of Unite Against Fascism (UAF, UK)
D.R. Rayner Lysaght on behalf of Socialist Democracy (Ireland)
David Yaffe on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Group (UK)
Michael Holden on behalf of the Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group (London, UK)
Michael Pröbsting on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, USA, Brazil and Austria)
Alex Steiner on behalf of permanent-revolution.org (USA)
Martin Ralph on behalf of the International Socialist League (British section of the LIT)
William Keats on behalf of the Communist Left (Australia)
Tony Gard on behalf of the Revolutionary Internationalist League (British Section of the ITC)
Movimiento Popular
Unificado (Panama)
Juan Marino and Lionel Zivals on behalf of Tendencia Piquetera Revolucionaria - TPR (Argentina)
Matías Mlotek on behalf of Frente de Estudiantes en Lucha - FEL (Argentina)
Daiana Asquini on behalf of Agrupación de Mujeres en Lucha - Las Piqueteras (Argentina)
Sirimal Peiris on behalf of Workers Voice (Sri Lanka)
Felicity Dowling
Cheshire West NUT Solidarity officer (UK)
Martin Jansen on behalf of the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG, South Africa)
Frank Fitzmaurice on behalf of the United Socialist Party (tUSP, UK)
Martin Thomas on behalf of the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL, UK)
Marcus Halaby on behalf of Workers Power (WP,UK)
John Byrne on behalf of the Anti Fascist Network (UK)
Mark Fischer on behalf of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB, Weekly Worker)
Antônio Junior on behalf of Vanguarda Metalúrgica (Brazil)
Humberto Rodrigues on behalf of the Communist League / Liaison Committee for the Fourth
International (LCFI, Brazil)
León Carlos on behalf of the Tendencia Militante Bolchevique (LCFI, Argentina)
Gerry Downing on behalf of Socialist Fight, (LCFI, UK)
Yours Sincerely on behalf of the Ad Hoc Committee
