Greek media will continue strike in solidarity with their colleagues at public broadcaster ERT. Journalists at radio, television, newspapers and electronic media would be allowed to report only about topics related with the shutdown of ERT.
On Tuesday, June 11th, prime minister Antonis Samaras ordered the closure of Greece’s public broadcaster and the immediate lay-off of 2,656 employees. The closure was announced in the afternoon and it was implemented before midnight. A new, restructured ERT is to be established but is not known when. During this process that may need several weeks or several months to complete, the screens of 5 ERT channels, the Greek Parliament Channel but also BBC, Deutsche Welle and French TV 5 remain blackened.
The worldwide-unprecedented decision caused a national outrage: the fired personnel occupied the ERT headquarters in Athens and started broadcast on 24-hour basis. Media unions immediately launched rolling 24-hour strikes, demanding from Samaras to reverse the decision.
Thousands of people flock daily to ERT to express solidarity and protest the authoritarian decision -allegedly to crack corruption in a public institution.
The shutdown caused also a crisis among coalition government partners, as PASOK and Democratic Left do not agree with Samaras on the 75-year-old ERT closure.
PS in a way, Greeks are relieved to take a breath from the non-stop mainstream media bombardment with austerity measures, taxes, levies, and scaring and confusing government statements.