The demonstration followed a September 25 protest meeting of nearly 400 people in defense of political rights held at the Polytechnic Institute in Athens.

Government officials have targeted some supporters of the Palestinian struggle and other political activists under the banner of "fighting terrorism."

Supporters of political rights celebrated the victory won on September 18 when one political activist, Avraam Lesperoglou, was acquitted of charges of attempted murder of a police officer.

"My case concerns solely my 25 years of solidarity with the Palestinian and every other national liberation and revolutionary movement, and has nothing to do with any form of terrorism," Lesperoglou said.

Lesperoglou, an active supporter of the Palestinian people’s struggle, had been charged in 1982 with shooting a policeman in a burglary, explained Nikos Yannopoulos, a leader of the Network in Defense of Political and Social Rights, in an interview. In 1999 he was arrested on these charges after returning to Greece from hiding in Holland. The jury found him innocent of all the charges.

The case dragged on until this year. Government officials also accused Lesperoglou of being part of a "terrorist" organization. The Supreme Court called for a new trial and he was again found not guilty by the jury. The cop frame-up collapsed in court as the only evidence presented against Lesperoglou was testimony by the police officer.

This case comes in the context of a campaign by the government of the social democratic Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) against workers’ rights under the cover of "fighting terrorism."

Yannopoulos noted that with an "antiterrorism" law passed by the parliament last year the government is seeking to erode basic constitutional rights. Under that legislation, "if someone is convicted of belonging to a group deemed terrorist, that person faces 20 years in prison even if he or she has not committed any terrorist acts; jury trials are done away with; stool pigeons can be let off with easy time; and prosecution witnesses do not have to be present at trials."

Under the new law, those accused of "terrorism" will be tried by a three-judge panel instead of a jury. Lesperoglou was the last person accused of terrorism to be tried before a jury.

Lesperoglou’s trial took place in the midst of arrests of individuals accused of belonging to a group called the November 17 Revolutionary Organization (N17). In the past two months, 17 people have been arrested on charges of being N17 members. Four of them deny any involvement with the group.

N17 claimed responsibility for almost two dozen assassinations over the course of the last 25 years. The most prominent individuals the group has taken responsibility for assassinating were Athens CIA station chief Richard Wells, in December 1975, and a British military attaché, Brigadier Steven Saunders, in June 2000. Other targets of the group have included Turkish diplomats and various well-known Greek capitalists and bourgeois politicians. The group used anti-imperialist and nationalist rhetoric to justify its actions.

The PASOK government, along with the capitalist media, have used the arrests of alleged N17 members to carry out an intense "antiterrorist" campaign. In a policy speech Prime Minister Constantinos Simitis declared, "These people [N17] are not heroes, they are criminals. Society must condemn them without a doubt. Terrorism will be dealt with thoroughly."

In a commentary in Kathimerini, a big business paper, columnist Costas Iordanis wrote, "It should be noted immediately that only a left-wing government could have taken the dismantling of terrorism to the point where it is now meeting no vociferous public reaction."  
 
Attacking rights of accused, due process
The antiterrorism campaign is being used to target workers’ rights, including restrictions on the rights of the accused and on due process. Savas Xeros, arrested in June as an N17 member, was held in police custody at a hospital for several days without access to an attorney or to his family. He was in the hospital recovering from life-threatening injuries incurred when a bomb he was allegedly carrying prematurely exploded in Piraeus. From his hospital bed, and before his lawyer was able to see him, he named several people as N17 members. The new "antiterrorism" law grants leniency to accused individuals who collaborate with a police investigation.

"Our constitution provides that a person charged with a crime must be brought before a judge within 24 hours of being arrested. If the patient is incapacitated, the judge goes to the hospital. In this case he went 70 days later," said Xeros’s lawyer, George Agiostratitis, to the press. In either case the questioning must be conducted "in the presence of a lawyer," he said.

According to Yannopoulos of the Network in Defense of Political and Social Rights, some detainees accused of belonging to N17 have been denied meetings with their lawyers, are being kept in solitary confinement, or have even been denied visits. Discussions with attorneys have been taped by the police and then leaked to the press.

Commenting on the violations of due process, Agiostratitis said, "Despite the legal presumption of innocence, we see statements daily by Greek officials, including the justice minister, that prejudge the results of the case.... The media and others are cultivating a destructive climate."

More than 100 people are now under government investigation on "terrorism" charges, according to Kathimerini. Yannis Serifis, a former trade unionist who like Lesperoglou was tried and acquitted of murder charges, has been smeared as an N17 operative.

"Serifis was an opponent of the dictatorship and a worker in Germany. After the military junta fell [in 1974] he returned and got a job at the AEG plant, and became a leader of the union there," Yannopoulos said. "In 1977, during a union struggle at the plant, the Popular Revolutionary Struggle group clashed with the police leading to the death of one person. Serifis was charged and held in jail for 18 months. A jury found him not guilty. He remained an active trade union fighter in the trolley workers union. Now the government is trying to frame him up as an N17 cadre. Many trade unionists have already come out in his defense," Yannopoulos reported.

When the Network in Defense of Political and Social Rights led the successful defense campaign for Lesperoglou, the group itself became a target of smears of being "linked to terrorism." Referring to the Network-sponsored demonstration, Dora Bakoyanni, the New Democracy party candidate for mayor of Athens and front-runner in the upcoming elections, labeled the demonstrators "supporters of November 17 who, without shame, provoked not only the families of the victims but all of society."

This assault on workers’ rights takes place in the midst of the growing imperialist moves toward war in the Mideast. "Greece will be involved in the coming war, and those who do not support the government in this war will be labeled supporters of terrorism. In this way they want to silence opposition," Yannopoulos said.  
 
 
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