ERT belongs to the people
Today the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and UNI Global Union Media Entertainment & Arts (UNI-MEI) together with their member organizations in Belgium expressed their solidarity with the Greek journalists, media workers and citizen who are fighting for the independent of the public media in Greek and resist the closure of the public broadcaster ERT.
At a rally outside the Greek Embassy in Belgium the organizations applauded the Greek of the journalists and media workers unions and called on called on Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, to reverse this incomprehensible and dangerous decision immediately. IFJ and UNI want ERT back on the air and the rights of the journalists and media workers respected. Any reform of the ERT needs to be based on dialogue with the workers and their representative organisations.
IFJ General Secretary, Beth Costa, said: This decision is simply absurd. It will be a major blow to democracy, to media pluralism and to journalism as a public good in Greece, thus depriving citizens from their right to honest, level-headed and unbiased information. But it will also mean the loss of journalist’s jobs across the country.
"It is unacceptable to cut jobs at ERT and to privatize the public media in Greece. Public regional stations cannot be substituted by any corporate interest.”
UNI Europa, Regional Secretary, Oliver Roethig said “Greece needs ERT, Greek citizens need ERT, and most importantly, Greek democracy needs ERT. It is unacceptable that a pillar of media democracy and cultural diversity in the European and international audiovisual landscapes is forced to close as a response to the EU and Troika’s demands to meet the goals of a failed austerity policy.”
UNI calls on all its affiliates to express their solidarity to the Greek public broadcasting workers and sign the petition ‘Stop the shutdown of Public Television in Greece!’ by clicking here
Luc Vandenhoeck, General Sceretary of ACOD-VRT, the media workers union at the Belgium Broadcaster VRT said “All our unions stand in solidarity with colleagues at ERT and citizens in Greece. This is a call for resistance to the diktat of the Troika and colleagues across the world will continue to take actions to help defend public service broadcasting in Greece. ”
IFJ/EFJ: www.ifj.org / http://europe.ifj.org
The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 131 countries. The EFJ represents more than 250.000 members in over 30 countries in Europe.
UNI MEI: www.uniglobalunion.org/mei
UNI MEI represents 140 unions and guilds and 300 000 workers in the media and entertainment industries in over 70 countries worldwide