Media unions protest after police charged well-known photojournalist Nikos Pilos in Athens while he was reporting on a police operation hunting a suspected arsonist.
Greek police arrested a well-known and awarded photojournalist Nikos Pilos, while reporting in the Prosfygika area in Athens on a police operation hunting a suspected arsonist.
Pilos was freed after midnight Tuesday; however, police filed 10 criminal charges against him.
“No one prevented me from entering the area. The tenants were holding an assembly. There was a little use of chemicals by the police, so we went up to the roof to get some air … The police also came up and, despite the fact that I showed them my professional identity card, arrested me. I was charged with 10 charges that can land you 15 years in prison,” Pilos told BIRN.
The police operation in the Prosfygika area of Alexandra Avenue was part of a search for a person suspected of involvement in arson attacks on the media Real Group. On November 13, a fire broke out in the building housing Real FM 97.8 and Real News. The Fire Service found improvised explosives.
Police said the operation was carried out to arrest a person involved in arson attacks. “After the arrest, groups of people gathered at the scene, climbed onto the roof and threw objects (stones, building materials, etc.) at the police forces, preventing the seizure and transport of the arrested person’s vehicle. So far, dozens of arrests have been made from the spot.”
Pilos has been documenting the lives of people leaving in the Prosfygika area in Athens since 2017. From 2019 to 2020, with the support of the non-profit organization iMEdD, he developed a cross-media, interactive project on the people living there.
Immigrants, refugees, political activists, workers, unemployed, elderly, homeless, families, drug addicts, and ex-prisoners have become neighbours in the housing complex, comprising eight buildings with 228 apartments. Some have papers, many are undocumented while others are in transit to Western Europe.
Greek newspaper EFSYN wrote that, after the first arrests, police organized a second operation in the area; among the arrested people was also a pregnant woman who complained that they did not provide her with medical assistance. Pictures on social media show kneeling people on the ground, tied to bars by the police.
Police issued a second press release saying that 78 people were arrested and charged with violence against officials and judicial persons, disturbance of the peace, joint infliction of bodily harm, infliction of grievous bodily harm by complicity and damage to property, as well as violation of the laws on guns, flares and sparklers. “The result of their illegal actions was the injury of seven police officers, two of them seriously,” wrote the press release.
Police told BIRN they currently cannot make any comments on the issue.
Christos Mponis, president of the Photojournalist Union of Greece, told BIRN that journalists must be free to do their work.
“Since professional photojournalists have their professional ID signed by the chief of police, the law enforcement agencies must respect the public document and leave us free to do our jobs. We only record the facts and it is a constitutional right to practice our profession,” he said.
The Foreign Press Association, FPA, condemned the arrest and detention of Pilos, saying that the charges were imposed without testimony or evidence against him; and called on the police, judicial authorities, and the state to drop all charges.
The FPA mentioned that the police that day obstructed the work of journalists and photojournalists and In a press release announced that will take measures to secure the safety of journalists.
Pilos is an Athens-based, award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker. He is one of Europe’s noted feature photographers. He has travelled extensively to document war, natural disasters, poverty, socioeconomic struggle and cultural shifts and his work regularly appears in leading international newspapers and magazines throughout Europe and the US.