Arpan (Ravi Shankar for George Harrison)

"Anoushka Shankar and a 16-piece orchestra performing a composition especially written by her father, Ravi Shankar for George Harrison. Eric Clapton also played the guitar at the end.
Beautiful piece..."

Baxter working on vaccine to stop swine flu, though admitted sending live pandemic flu viruses to subcontractor

By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org
26 Apr 2009

The OMFG moment of the century: Illinois-based Baxter working on vaccine to 'stop' swine flu outbreak in Mexico 25 Apr 2009 Specialty drug maker Baxter International Inc. will work with the World Health Organization to develop a vaccine that could stem [foment] an outbreak of a deadly swine flu strain in Mexico. Baxter spokesman Christopher Bona said Saturday that the Deerfield, Ill.-based company has asked the WHO for a sample of the flu strain. He says Baxter has patented technology that allows the company to develop vaccines in half the time it usually takes -- about 13 weeks instead of 26. [Is Baxter International taking a page from the Blackwater playbook? Just as Blackwater/Xe keep on killing to justify their multi-billion dollar contracts to provide 'security' in Iraq and Afghanistan, Baxter International is poised to make *billions* to vaccinate people against their pandemic.]

Are you ready? Wait for it...

Virus mix-up by lab could have resulted in pandemic [Uh, it apparently f*cking *did.*] 06 Mar 2009 It's emerged that virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab [the Austrian branch of US vaccine company, Baxter] last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realised. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.

'This was infected with a bird flu virus.' Viral Pandemic H5N1 flu threat: Illinois-based Baxter contaminates European labs by error 25 Feb 2009 According to the scientific network PROMED, Baxter International Inc. in Austria "unintentionally contaminated samples with the bird flu virus that were used in laboratories in 3 neighboring countries, raising concern about the potential spread of the deadly disease". As PROMED reports, the contamination has been discovered when ferrets at a laboratory in the Czech Republic died after being inoculated with vaccine made from the samples early this month. "The material came from Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter, which reported the incident to the Austrian Ministry of Health, Sigrid Rosenberger, a ministry spokeswoman, said today in a telephone interview", the network-alert-system is quoting. "This was infected with a bird flu virus," Rosenberger said. "There were some people from the company who handled it."

'That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.' Baxter admits sending live avian flu viruses to subcontractor --People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled [!] in the Orth-Donau facility. 27 Feb 2009 The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. And an official of the World Health Organization's European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International's research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria. [Source: The Canadian Press]

Spectre of pandemic 26 Apr 2009 The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of Mexico's dead were young, healthy adults, and none was aged older than 60 or or younger than three, the World Health Organisation said. This has alarmed health officials... Pandemic flus - like the 1918 Spanish flu and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics - often strike young, healthy people the hardest. Mexican officials promised a huge immunisation campaign in the capital this week. [The deadly vaccine program *ensures* a pandemic!]

CLG: Flu Kills The Torture Memos --In a 'Holy convenience, Batman!' moment, a 'unique' flu virus (one likely concocted in US Army labs) overtakes media coverage of revelations that the highest levels of the US government instructed the CIA (and private contractors) to torture terror suspects. By Lori Price 26 April 2009 Guess where the first swine flu outbreak occurred? That's right, Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 1976. Thirteen soldiers died, leading the US government to force a questionable vaccine on the population -- backed by a legal liability escape clause mandated by and for the pharma-terrorists. Next, people started dying not from the flu -- but from the *vaccine.* [See compendium of key flu articles here.]

Sanofi Aventis Invests 100 Million Euros In New Facility In Mexico to Produce Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza Vaccine 19 Mar 2009 Sanofi-aventis, announced the signing of an agreement with the Mexican authorities to build a 100 million euro facility to manufacture influenza vaccine in Mexico. The announcement was made during a ceremony attended by Felipe Calderon, [unelected] President of Mexico, and Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, who was in Mexico City for a State visit. "By building this new facility, sanofi-aventis is proud to contribute to the strengthening of Mexico's health infrastructure and is eager to support Mexico's exemplary commitment to public health through influenza immunization and pandemic readiness", said Chris Viehbacher, Chief Executive Officer of sanofiaventis. [Now, that's what I call foresight!]

DoD to carry out 'military missions' during pandemic, WMD attack

DoD to 'augment civilian law' during pandemic or bioterror attack

Permanent URL for this page: http://www.legitgov.org/baxter_flu_vaccine_260409.html

Open letter of Antinazi Initiative to the democrats in Greece and in Europe

From the Antinazi Initiative :

• A GREEK COURT LEGALIZES THE CALL FOR THE EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS
  

• THIS HORRIFYING DECISION IS COVERED BY THE OFFICIAL POLITICAL WORLD

Don't let Greece turn into the first racist state in the European Union

On March 27, 2009 the Appeal Court of Athens acquitted the nazi and racist Kostas Plevris for his book “The Jews: The whole Truth”. The book is an unprecedented praise of the Third Reich, Hitler, the SS and the racist war they launched against the peoples. In this K. Plevris tries to establish the reasons for which Greece and the whole Europe should get rid of the “sub-human” and “treacherous” Jews!!! The book as a whole and in every page is the most exemplary and vociferous case for the enforcement of the antiracist Law 927/79, for the violation of which the nazi was committed for trial in September 2007 on charges brought against him for “incitement to racial hatred” and for “offensive speech against a group of people”, specifically the Jews on the grounds of their ethnic, racial or religious identity.

Yet, the Appeals Court acquitted him overturning the first-degree decision for his conviction, ruling that extracts of the book as the following are not calls for violence and incitement to hatred against the Jews, nor insults against them!!!

- “That's what the Jews deserve. For it's the only way they understand: firing squad within 24 hours...”

- “Wake up, the treacherous Jews are digging a pit for the Nations. Wake up and throw them in, for they deserve it...”

- “The civilized world is to blame that tolerates those international pests called Judeans... the time of retaliation has come...”

- “The Jew (in religion) and the human being are contradicting terms, that is the one excludes the other”

- “The criminal behaviour of the Jews explains the Nazis' deeds against them, and more than that, it justifies them”.

- «The history of the humankind will hold Adolph Hitler responsible for the following: He did not rid Europe from the Jews while he could» etc.

- “We despise the Jews for their morality, for their religion, for their deeds, which all prove that they are sub-humans”.

- (Underneath Auschwitz photo): “They rightly preserve the camp (Auschwitz) at a good condition, because nobody knows what might happen in the future”

- “I cannot bear to see the murderers, bandits, rapists, oppressors, pests, corruptors, sappers of the ruffian Jewry, slandering the superior National-Socialists...”

- «The ΖΥKLON B was nothing more than a poisonous gas that was used to clear the concentration camps from insects… all the rest are fairytales of propaganda»

- «The Jewish talking of corpses in the case of Auschwitz was proved absolutely false from the beginning»

- «Get rid of the Jewish propaganda, that deceives you with concentration camps, gas chambers, «ovens» and other fairytales of the pseudo-holocaust...» ,

(You can find all the extracts included in the indictment at the website of ANI, “www.antinazi.gr”).

The Appeals Court of Athens with such a decision – taken with votes four to one ¹- not only trampled the antiracist law and the international anti-racism Convention ratified by Greece, but also validated the legitimacy of any call for murderous violence against the Jewish citizens and their expulsion from our country and from the whole Europe. If such a call was finally legitimated, that would be a raw and outrageous infringement of the constitution and of any foundation of democratism, as well as encouragement of any racist attitude and act in Greece. But such a legitimacy would also mean that in one corner of Europe, is initiated the revision of the whole social, political, ethical and legal civilization upon which the construction of the postwar institutions of each separate European country and of the European Union as a system of democratic and voluntary state union is founded. Since it is not difficult for anyone to understand that to recognize the right to propagate a racist genocide, is as far away from the right to commit a racist genocide as the psychological and moral preparation of any crime is far away from committing it.

We attribute to this decision an historically decisive and ominous character because it is not an isolated decision of a certain court and of certain judges, but because it comes as a capping of a series of anti-Semitic positions expressed from several judges who participated to the judicial proceedings from the beginning, as well as of a crucial mistrial resulting from the fact that the counsels for the complainants were ousted from the trial. Yet, the most important and the most worrying is that this judicial attitude and this ruling were possible, because there was a general political encouragement, either indirectly or directly, from all parliamentary parties, from all trade union leaderships, from all television channels, and also from all the official human rights organizations.

For this unprecedented and deep violation of any sense of democratism, we believe that it is worthwhile to make widely known all the concrete circumstances under which this trial was held.

The anti-Semitic positions from judges and the mistrial

We will limit our reference here only in the most evident cases of judicial infringement of the spirit and of the letter of the antiracist law within a long procedure of 18 months, a procedure full of postponements, and during which the composition of the court changed four times (twice at the first degree and twice at the second degree).

The first and most crucial act of violation of the legitimacy of the procedure was the court's decision to oust the counsels for the complainants!!! The ousting of the counsels of the complainants was confirmed by new rulings from all different subsequent court's compositions in all the trials that followed in the first and in the second degree.

The irony is that the ousting of counsels of the complainants was decided on the grounds that the state, in specific the court, could defend the injured part, that is the Jews against any kind of racist speech that placed them under threat. Therefore the Jews, supposedly, did not need to be represented by their own counsels in the trial.

Nevertheless in the first phase of the trial, the public prosecutor who suggested the ousting of the counsels for the complainants² passionately defended this racist book, as “a scientific writing”. At the same time during the hearing he made an unconscionable attack to the witnesses for the prosecution of the Antinazi Initiative (ANI). At a point the public prosecutor defending the freedom of expression asked the witness of ANI: «Would you like to be judged and convicted by a nazi court;» thus recognizing that such a court could make justice (!!!). Finally he threatened to arrest her, saying to her «The court tolerates you. I cannot tolerate you. If you go on like this I will have you arrested…».

At the same trial the witness referred to a phrase of the book interpreting it as a call for new extermination of the Jews, that is the phrase “they do well and they keep Auschwitch in good condition because no one knows what could happen in the future”. At that the presiding judge replied ironically “So what, they can build a new one, can't they?”

(We note that Antinazi Initiative denounced the above mentioned public prosecutor to the competent judicial bodies submitting a detailed report but until this day no reply has been received).

The result was that the witnesses for the prosecution, Jews and non-Jews ³, were examined in each trial under the constant persistent attacks of the nazi defendant and his counsels who were trying, often tolerated by the bench, to demean them with political even personal accusations irrelative to the indictment. At the same time, during the judicial proceedings the religion of Jewish witnesses for the prosecution was targeted as criminal and put on trial in front of the bench that was either tolerant or participating, while they were asked to define their relation with the state of Israel. In other words the witnesses for the prosecution found themselves in the place of defendants who nevertheless had no right to have their own counsels in the courtroom for their defense as happens in any other trial.

The trials did not evolve as a political and legal monologue of one side, only because the witnesses for the prosecution showed strength and determination demolishing the arguments of the nazi's defense.

Besides the procedure, it was the content of a series of critical judicial positions which signaled the negative atmosphere that prevailed in the courtroom. These judicial positions not only were left unchallenged since there were not any contrary positions from other judges and prosecutors – with an exception or two - but also the witnesses of ANI received a fierce attack from the bench during the last Appeals Court trial because they dared to denounce the above positions in the press.

In the meantime, a disciplinary preliminary investigation (!) was ordered against the public prosecutor who brought charges against K. Plevris⁴, following a legal recourse made by the nazi who alleged that the prosecutor brought him to trial without legal reasons. The competent prosecutor of the Appeals Court⁵ held this preliminary investigation. In his concluding report, he explained in length why his colleague should not have brought the nazi to trial and rebutted almost all the major charges included in the indictment.

Among others this prosecutor mentioned the following in his report: «From the study of the writing in question (of Plevris book) it is concluded that the unfavorable opinions stated for the Jews are mostly result of historical research (underlined by us) with detailed reference to relative historical facts and opinions of third historical personalities specifically against a certain category of Jews, those called in the writing as Jew-Zionists… It is obvious that the generalization of the application of Law 927/79 (the antiracist law) abolishes the articles 14 and 16 of the constitution in force that establish the freedom of expression, of science and research (underlined by us) and specifically the same generalization forbids the historical research abolishing the provisions of the corresponding article of European Convention for Human Rights (ECHR)».

In other words, the Appeals Court public prosecutor of a European country considers the most monstrous text of Holocaust denial as «the result of historical research» and its legalization as a demand of “science and research”. As for the term of Jew-Zionism, this is used from the nazi in the book in order to escape the blame that he propagandizes violence against the Jews in general. Each judicial text, and each closing statement of the public prosecutors through the whole judicial procedure, aiming to exculpate the nazi from the charge that he propagandizes violence against the Jews, included the argument that whenever the word Jew appears in the book, the true meaning is «Jew-Zionist», an argument that is directly against the letter and spirit of the book.

There are even more horrifying references: In the «writing» of Plevris there is a caption included also in the indictment, below a photo of little children in Auschwitz. In this caption the nazi mocking the children facing death he writes: «Jewish kids: We can see that they are very fat». The same prosecutor acknowledges this sarcasm with the following remark: «here it is simply commented that the Jewish kids are in a good physical condition». Elsewhere he remarks that, among others, one of the so-called “objects of historical research” of Plevris, is considered to be «the international purposes of the Jew-Zionists as they appear in various of their own texts (like the Old Testament, the Talmud, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion» (underlined by us). What concerns us at this point is not that the prosecutor characterizes the Christian Old Testament as a text of “Jew-Zionists”, but that he considers as an existent and historical text of the “Jew-Zionists” the basic ideological tool of the nazi extermination, namely the czarist fabrication of the «Protocols of the Elders of Zion».

Along the exact same lines with the above Public Prosecution of the Appeals Court but on a much more advanced and systematic basis, the Appeals Court Judge who was outvoted in the first-degree decision wrote her reasoning ⁶ (with this decision K. Plevris was condemned to 14 months imprisonment on December 2007). There, she also insists against any grammar and logical rule and against the spirit and connotations of the whole book, that whenever Plevris turns against the Jews, he turns against the «Jew-Zionists» and finally against the policy of the state of Israel and not against the Jews.

Let us see how the judge “acquits” the writer for the following extract of the book:

«I mostly challenge you, my readers, to discuss about Talmud and the Jewish religion. It is you that I challenge the most, for you are the victims. Wake up, the treacherous Jews are digging a pit for the Nations. Wake up and throw them in, for they deserve it... (…) The study of Talmud leads us as per logical and moral necessity to the conclusion that the Jews should be dealt with as enemies of the humankind. Therefore, I accuse the German Nazis of not clearing our Europe of the Jew-Zionism, even though they could. The answer to the question, on whether it was right that the Germans concentrated the Jews to transport them to Madagascar, is obvious: Considering what the Jews teach and seek, what the Germans did wasn't right. They shouldn't have sent them to Madagascar, but to their Jehovah to read the Talmud all together standing up”.

This extract is commented by the Appeals Court judge as follows:

«In this extract the writer based on the unquestionably intolerant and antichristian references of Talmud (holy books of the Jews), (underlined by us) for which he claims that until this day they keep teaching them in their synagogues, he challenges his readers to wake up and see the danger which according to his opinion, the Jews Zionists hold for them. They are the ones he mentions and condemns and not the Jews in general, as nation and race. It is nevertheless noteworthy that also the Jews in religion…witnesses Veniamin Albala and Abraam Reitan, after taking an oath on the Holy Bible, speaking of Talmud, with evasive expressions, avoided to declare expressly if they condemn or not above teachings» !!! (underlined by us).

In other words the judge not only adopts the authenticity of the extracts of the Talmud cited by the anti-Semite and not only adopts his accusations against Talmud but also blames the Jewish witnesses in the trial for not disapproving it. This is de facto anti-Semitism and is revealed as such in the following extract of the indictment which incriminates as no other his writer for the offence of racist insult:

«Jew (in religion) and human are contradicting terms, that is, the one excludes the other. According to their standard tactic, the Jews conceal their origin, which usually is identical to their religion».

The judge writes in relation to this extract: «It is obvious that the writer refers to the citations from the holy books of Talmud as analyzed previously in his writing, which unquestionably include intolerant and antichristian teachings, against any sense of humanism and therefore he notes justifiably, that the Jew who adopts them, obviously is deprived of humanism» (!!) (underlined by us).

Commenting on the following repulsive praises of the nazi for Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and the SS, included in the book and in the indictment: «ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1945): The tragic leader of the Third German Reich is absolutely the most impressive leading feature of modern age... The history of humankind will charge Hitler with the following: 1. He didn't got rid of the Jews in Europe though he could. 2. He didn't use the special chemical weapons which only Germany possessed in order to win... As a result of Germany's defeat, the White Race and Europe are now in danger... The day will come when the Europeans will either prevail or be destroyed. In both cases they will admit that Hitler was right”... “JOSEPH GOEBBELS (1897-1945): One of the brightest minds of the century. A philosopher and fighter with a deep understanding of mass psychology, on every battlefield he vanquished Jewish Bolshevism and headed his country's all out war”.

The judge of a European court 60 years after the most cannibalistic and genocidal war of all times writes:

«The above views of the writer, even if they are considered extreme (underlined by us), still voice his own political belief and world theoretical view on the historical political systems of democracy and national socialism, as well as his opinion for the historical persons who were the protagonists of World War II».

In other words according to the judge it is possible that such ultra-racist and nazi “views” may not be considered extreme while the national socialism, that is nazism, namely the worst racism-cannibalism has the repute of an historical political system such as democracy!

It is characteristic that commenting on this call made in the book: «Messrs Jews go to your Country and relieve us of your presence ...The White Race want no Semites in Europe, because its biological interest dictates that», the judge claims that the writer here simply «adopts the political view of the Nazis, without having aim of insult or provocation to acts of violence, that the White Race does not want Semites in Europe».

In accordance with the “historical political system of racism”, surely it would not be an insult or provocation to acts of violence to call for the expulsion of the Jews from Europe. All the above were stated by the judge while at the same time not a word was included in the text to disapprove the pro-Hitler positions of the writer not only commenting the above citations but all the horrifying extracts.

Therefore it is finally inevitable that the judge supports the defendant also regarding the extracts of the indictment referring to denial of the Holocaust which the judge questions as she writes:

«The above also voice the political positions of the writer, who attempts with documents described in detail in his book, to question the extent of the Holocaust, which, he claims concerns only 66,000 to 350,000 Jews, according to the official data of the International Red Cross and not 6,000,000 as the Zionist movement, invokes for reasons of interest. His above views even though they are not completely accurate (underlined by us), in any case it is not proved that the writer knowingly cites inaccurate events and data and therefore they do not bear penal consequence since they refer clearly to political beliefs and to narrative of historical facts, under the influence and under the prism of the world view of the writer».

If these «views» are not “completely accurate” then they are definitely “relatively accurate”. In other words according to the judge, the 6,000,000 dead of the Holocaust are not an indisputable historical fact.

At that, let's see what the judge replies to the following cynical extracts of the nazi included in the indictment:

“The concentration camps, the “ovens”, the “soap”, and the tortures were and still remain the most favorite themes used by the anti-nazi propaganda...”, “You get affected and impressed by movies, such as the “holocaust”, by the so-called “tortures” the Jews went through 60 years ago...” (underlined by us)

The judge answers: «In these extracts it is obvious that the writer, irrespectively of the issue if he questions the Holocaust or not, supporting his opinion with references to historical sources (underlined by us), according to which, there were presented different each time versions of the number of the Jews killed, in the World War II, who were estimated to be from 60,000,000 to 350,000 (in accordance to data of the International Red Cross, see pages 1382-1383 of the book in question), what he wants to highlight is that although the Jews claim being victims of the war and the Nazis, the same today commit the same crimes in Palestine, which is not far from the truth (!) (underlined by us), and the citation of such extracts is not made with intention of insult and provocation to acts of violence against the Jewish people, solely for reasons related to their national and racial origin, but with the intention of historical substantiation of the views of the writer » (!)

The allegation that the Hitlerians committed the same crimes with these of Israel against the Palestinians is the most condensed way of demeaning and relativization of the extent and quality of hitlerian crimes, especially having to do with the reversal of the roles of Perpetrator-Victim, used by all the pro-nazi and anti-Semites worldwide today.

Towards the end of the text summarizing her conclusions the judge writes:

…ς:ικαστεξον Παυτ……………………………….ι «All above extracts of the book in question are supported by historical resources of the specific period …which the writer mentions in his book in detail), showing the required, for the scientist historian, diligence» (underlined by us).

We cannot publish all the judgments of the judge for this monstrous book but there are more of them, which all show a diligent effort not only to acquit his writer from penal charges but even worse to embellish his positions and to clear him politically and morally.

The witnesses of ANI who denounced with their announcements the positions of the judges and public prosecutors received fierce criticism from the Presiding Judge of the bench, during the last trial of the Appeals Court (that resulted to the nazi's acquittal). In fact, the bench pressed unbearably the President of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) to condemn ANI for the above announcements, which he refused to do. It is finally characteristic how the bench was tolerant to the constant provocations of the nazi even when he had the audacity to tell the witnesses for the prosecution: «if Hitler is risen from the grave he will take care of you!!!».

Therefore, we can see that the acquittal decision did not fall suddenly from the sky but was the subsequent result of a judicial perception –we hope it is not prevailing- that nevertheless has been calmly crystallized during the 18 months that the whole judicial procedure lasted.

From the above we conclude that whichever might be the final official reasoning of the acquittal, this could only have been based either on a conscious misinterpretation of the book, either on a “tenderness” for its content, or on a blatant infringement of antiracist law. ⁷

The political climate is accountable for the judicial attitude

In any democratic country, such a scandalously anti-democratic and anti-constitutional attitude of a court would be inconceivable if there wasn't total cover-up of this attitude by the entirety of political authority, and especially by the entirety of the country's political parties, whether big or small (with the exception of a non-parliamentary one). For if at least one small parliamentary party wanted to differentiate itself from those judicial attitudes, positions, proceedings, and decisions could have easily done it with ensured publicity because all parliamentary parties have the right to express their positions on every matter they consider important every day at the news broadcasts of every TV channel.

As a result, the great majority of the Greek public opinion has not been informed at all for this trial as no TV channel out of the 9 TV Channels of national range ever mentioned anything about the trial, anything about the initial sentence, anything about the nazi's acquittal by the court of appeal at its news broadcast.

In order to justify their stance to the most concerned people, the political parties that kept silent, have spread the notion that the trial is about a “marginal” person and that it would be better if no charge was brought against him, or at least no sentence, so as to prevent the “marginal” being turned into a hero.

A book that so brutally praises the most murderous and racist war the Mankind has ever lived, is circulated by the country's most central bookstores in thousands of copies, cannot be a marginal event, and therefore its writer cannot be marginal either. Especially he can't be marginal in the only EU country where the open nazis are completely legal. We refer to the rather massive murderous “Chrysi Avgi” (“Golden Dawn”) nazi gang. Most of all, this couldn't be the case so long as the “marginal” and his book are directly linked to a political party of the parliament and the European parliament, the anti-Semitic LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally).

The nazi Plevris, a well-known cadre of the Greek junta and political ancestor of the post-war fascism and nazism in Greece, was a founding member of LAOS. This party later removed him from its ranks, so as not to be irreparably exposed to the accusations for pro-nazism, but did it “quietly” and without ever denouncing him. However, the two most prevalent MPs and parliamentary spokesmen of LAOS have directly or indirectly supported the book. The first one is Adonis Georgiadis, who for a long time advertised this book on TV, by saying that “this is my favorite book”. The second one is Th. Plevris, son of K. Plevris, who was his counsel in the trial and demanded acquittal for the nazi, saying that a Greek citizen cannot be refused the right to demand the extermination of any people or to demand that the Auschwitz reopens (!) The LAOS youth organization has also presented the book at its website, while an article by its leader Karatzaferis published in the official party's newspaper, “A1”, at the final phase of the trial, came to the conclusion: that “the Jew smells blood”.

Those tremendous manifestations of fascism that would have caused a political earthquake in any democratic country have been smothered here by all the mass media (the press included) and no comment was made by any party. As a result LAOS entered the parliament, while Th. Plevris has now been appointed member of a high defacto judicial authority: the preliminary investigation commission that judges the members of the Greek parliament!!!

Anyone is entitled to his own opinion regarding the reason for which, the call for anti-Semitic violence as well as the legal status of neo-nazi gangs have political shielding in a country of the EU. We simply note that the same political shielding is observed in Russia and at the same time the most powerful leading political fractions of the two countries all the more identify in all major regional and international affairs.

Irrespectively of the interpretation of the phenomenon of political shielding of anti-Semitism and neo-nazism in Greece, it is certain that only such as shielding could explain why, with the exception of a handful of reactions from some democratically minded journalists, all the collective factors and the personalities who ought to react, remained silent.

So, the stance of silence did not only apply for the TV channels. All the trade unions having leaderships controlled by political parties, the church – as expected because it has huge part of responsibility for the growth of anti-Semitism in the country during the recent years. Almost all the human rights, anti-racist and pro-immigrants organizations remained silent as well, with the exception of ANI and GHM (Greek Helsinki Monitor). At that, shortly before the initial verdict of guilt, the chairman⁸ of the largest, the most institutionally official organization, that is the Greek National Commission for Human Rights, published a text in favor of the nazi's acquittal, which the public prosecutor in this trial upheld enthusiastically in order to justify her acquittal proposal.

We must resist! The decision must be reversed.

Dear friends, democrats in Greece and Europe.

Please forgive us for the length of this letter, but it wasn't easy for us to portray more briefly the great danger we see hovering over our country and the causes of the suffocation we are suffering. We regard this judicial decision as a landmark in the general sociopolitical evolution in Greece. At that we consider the judicial attitude and the decision as more alarming than the book itself, and the cover-up of the book and of the judicial attitudes by the political regime as the most alarming of all.

The murderous anti-Semitism is not basically a matter that concerns Jews. It concerns the great, the huge majorities of the population that every nazism seeks to subjugate. Besides, we as Antinazi Initiative, who participated in this trial with all our forces and drafted the petition for the nazi's committal, are not Jews. But being conscious of the fact that in our country in the last 15 years, the typical nazis have made their appearance again noticeable without been hindered under the banner of the same murderous anti-Semitism, we considered that we shouldn't repeat the old mistake of leaving the Jews alone and then waiting for the nazi beast to hit the democrats in general. Because the beast would become irresistible if it were left to consolidate anti-Semitism within the people, because anti-Semitism is the nazi “interpretation of the world” and, in this world, the extermination of the Jew is the opium given to the poor and wretched people supposedly in order to relieve them from his problems. But if the poor and wretched sought to find relief in an unspeakable and irrational murder, then no racist murder and no irrationality would be foreign to them.

For many people, this brutality is impossible to repeat, as today there are not many open anti-Semites. However, most anti-Semites today appear as “anti-Zionists”, because the classic anti-Semitism has made a very bad reputation with hitlerism. According to “anti-Zionism” of the anti-semitic type, the state of Israel has the supernatural power to conspiratorially lead every other state and to cause every sort of exploitation and pain in the globe. That's why Israel is the only state the anti-Semites wish to wipe out from the map and the only state due to which all the people who are linked to it having the same religion or ethnic origin and who refuse to condemn it, are considered to be worthy of punishment, while such demands are never being formulated by anti-Semites against very big states that even perpetrate mass genocidal massacres.

Therefore the attempt to legitimate the call for extermination of the Jewish citizens in Greece through their identification with any war held by another state must resolutely be condemned.

For those reasons the whole democratic Greece, the whole democratic Europe, the whole world must react to the March 27 decision of the Athens Court of Appeals.

In this phase, the legal recourse that may lead to a new trial and overturn the acquittal decision is its cassation by the Supreme Court public prosecutor.

In order to pave the way for this cassation, the Greek and European democrats should demand mainly from the government but also from all political parties of Greece to publicly condemn this acquittal decision that brutally offends the Greek people and all peoples of Europe and ask that they take all necessary measures for its reversal.⁹ In the context of such an effort the Antinazi Initiative proposes that a letter be sent to the Prime minister of Greece, to which we refer in our introductory note.

Athens, April 24, 2009

Footnotes

1. The decision was taken with 4 votes in favor of the acquittal and 1 against, only for one part of the indictment, that is, for the incitement to racist violence and hate. For the second part, this of insulting ideas against the Jews, the decision was unanimous in favor of the acquittal.

2. Public Prosecutor L. Lazarakos

3. The witnesses for the prosecutor were: From Antinazi Initiative: Anna Stai, Irene Koutelou, Lambis Katsiapis. From the Central Board of Jewish Communities (KIS): Moysis Konstantinis (President), Veniamin Albala, Abraam Reitan, Leon Gabriilides. From the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) the representative Panagiotis Dimitras.

4. Public Prosecutor Sp. Mouzakitis

5. Public Prosecutor P. Matzounis

6. Appeals Court Judge M. Pagouteli

7: The reasoning of the acquittal decision of the court has not yet been issued.

8: President of National Commission for Human Rights, K. Papaioannou

9: The press representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, G. Koumoutsakos replying to a question of a journalist for the international criticism against our country, condemned the “extreme views” of Plevris, yet he did not condemn the decision for his acquittal.

Musical Innerlube: Anoushka Shankar & Norah Jones - 'Easy'