EMail: Greek gay rights activist gets sued for denouncing hate speech

A Greek bishop sued a Greek LGBT activist and an HIV/AIDS charity for 1 million euro, after the latter denounced him for his homophobic hate speech.

Hate speech against gays, lesbians and transgender people in Greece takes place with impunity. Several leading politicians, ministers, and religious leaders, as well as several journalists and other public figures, repeatedly insult and demean gays and lesbians without any legal or disciplinary consequences.

The latest example is the bishop of the Piraeus, Seraphim, who in an article maligned gays as ‘morally corrupt, obsessed with satisfying their psychopathological deviation and who have made a life value out of the faeces elimination tract'. Such is Seraphim's hatred against gays that he supports the claims of an alleged murderer. The bishop said that the popular Greek actor Nikos Seryanopoulos, who was murdered in what seems to be a homophobic crime, brought this on himself because, according to the alleged murderer, Seryanopoulos forced him to have sex, and him not being ‘that way' got upset and defended himself by stabbing the actor 21 times.

The above was sent to me by Synthesis HIV/AIDS Awareness a greek AIDS organisation who along with gay rights activist Leo Kalovyrnas. A petition to the Greek Government to ban hate speech against the Gay, Lesbian and Transexual community in Greece by changing the anti-discrimination law 927/1979 so as to cover hate crimes against the Greek LGBT community is online and I urge people to sign it.

The trial is due to start on 3rd February 2009 and I hope to keep a close eye on it.