President of SYRIZA-PS Alexis Tsipras submitted a request to interrupt the summer vacation of parliament and hold an extraordinary debate before the agenda on the issue of monitoring politicians and journalists.

Alexis Tsipras had a telephone conversation with the Speaker of the Greek Parliament, Mr. Konstantinos Tassoulas. The President of SYRIZA informed him that he had submitted a letter requesting an interruption of the parliament’s summer recess and scheduling an extraordinary debate before the agenda at the plenary meeting on the monitoring of politicians and journalists by the Prime Minister’s EYP.

Mr. Tsipras asked Mr. Tasulu to fulfill his self-evident democratic duty and to contribute as soon as possible to the exercise of all powers of lawmaking and parliamentary control and, as a last resort, to hold daily debates.

Tsipras letter

“To the President of the Hellenic Parliament, Mr. Konstantinos Tassoulas

Mr. President,

The political life of the country is going through one of the most critical moments of the post-political period.

After a flurry of revelations, it turns out that the National Intelligence Service, administratively subordinate to the Prime Minister, instead of fully focusing on solving the real problems of the country’s national security, has taken up a series of surveillance by declassifying people’s messages. which were of political interest to the prime minister himself. In fact, it is no coincidence that the same individuals became victims of spyware in the same period.

Today it is impossible to say with certainty how many and who, politicians, journalists or other citizens, were at the center of espionage interest and subjected to surveillance with the removal of their private lives, who carried out these actions, for what purpose and in what exchange.

Taking advantage of the fact that we are speaking during the summer holidays, the Prime Minister tried to avoid the necessary process of extensive and public accountability in the space that is his natural environment, that is, in Parliament, and decided to deliver a speech through a videotaped announcement with prepared text.

At the same time, he announced a legislative initiative that would be based on the Legislative Content Act, apparently in order to again, directly, at the most politically critical moment, avoid the control that the opposition would put him under.

In view of the fact that during this period the Parliament is in a state of informal non-functioning of the Plenum and its departments due to the summer holidays, and also in view of the fact that, as a SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, we want to immediately shed light on what happened with the highest dialogical process of critical consideration and discussions in the plenary session of Parliament, I urge you to immediately interrupt the summer holidays so that the plenary session of the Greek Parliament can convene.

I urge you to respond to your self-evident democratic duty as soon as possible to facilitate the exercise of all powers of legislative and parliamentary control, and as a last resort to organize a preliminary discussion on the issue of monitoring politicians and journalists of the Prime Minister’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Yours sincerely

Leader of the Official Opposition

Alexis Tsipras.

Request for preliminary debate in Parliament

“Subject: A motion to hold preliminary debates in Parliament (Article 143 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) regarding surveillance by the Prime Minister’s Office of his political opponents and journalists.

Dear Mr. President,

The government, having come to power, imposed the regime in every way to reproduce and maintain its power. To do this, she did not disdain the unworthy appointments of “mothers”, the scandalous waste of public funds, the silence and manipulation of the media, and even attempts to prosecute her political opponents in special courts and by erasing their views from the public. sphere .

However, it has recently been revealed that he did not even hesitate to build and maintain a highly efficient semi-state surveillance cell in the Maximos Palace itself.

Immediately after his election, the Prime Minister of the country, clearly calculating his next steps, placed the National Intelligence Service under his direct administrative control. He appointed a personal friend to the position of chief, who for his sake lowered the requirements for cognitive abilities for the position of commander of the service, changing the corresponding law. Subsequently, he allowed his immediate subordinates, the commander of the EMP and the prime minister’s general secretary, to use this secret service for other purposes. The journalist and also the president of PASOK – KINAL are two of those who have already proven with certainty that they were sometimes watched by the EMP with their privacy removed and sometimes by a predator espionage mechanism that the government claims it does not possess, but “coincidences” of goals and timing of follow-up actions show the opposite. The fact that the plan of deliberate surveillance was undetected is also confirmed by the emergency legislation of article 87 of Law 4790/2021, so that no one could – and even retroactively – be informed of the surveillance they were subjected to.

The government, even after complaints, despite having all the necessary evidence and time to find out exactly what happened, misled public opinion and spread lies in every institutional or non-institutional process. And not just leaked lies, but humiliated the country and its relations with third countries, showing them that they requested surveillance of the President of PASOK-KINAL or, even worse, unleashed their “trolls” on the Internet to spread blackmail against the victims of her surveillance.

Finally, literally today, the Prime Minister, in his public speech, briefly stated that he himself will be the one who will protect us from his arbitrariness and that he will do this through legislative initiatives, which he will again adopt with the Act of Legislative Content. He is so afraid of the process of living accountability in parliament that he prefers to hide behind pre-formulated texts, videotaped announcements and start passing laws in the absence of parliament.

For the above reasons, and because these are serious issues of common interest, we ask for a debate just before the agenda in Parliament (Article 143 of the Civil Code) on the issue of surveillance of political opponents. and journalists from the Prime Minister’s Office of the Prime Minister.

Yours sincerely

Leader of the Official Opposition

Alexis Tsipras.