Tsipras: Wiretapping issue damages democracy and national security

SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras said from Kastoria on Tuesday that te surveillance of "party leaders, deputies, ministers, MPs and MEPs, journalists, business people and judges that were revealed in recent months damage democracy at its core."

The main opposition party leader was speaking to +NEWS streaming station feeding regional news outlets while touring northern Greek prefectures.

Moreover, he added, "the revelations about the tracking of the country's Armed Forces chiefs damage the core of our national security."

Tsipras stressed that he will strive so those responsible for this "aberration carried out in terms of both the constitution and of the country's national security" are held accountable.

Proof concerning the wiretapping issue can be found through telecommunications providers, the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security & Privacy (ADAE), and the prosecutor who signed off on the intrusions, noted Tsipras, "and they will provide all the answers."

Meanwhile, PASOK-KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis took his case of being tracked by the National Intelligence Service (EYP) to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), it was announced on Tuesday.

Androulakis had announced the move during a press conference a fortnight ago, a party statement said.

As PASOK-KINAL added, "Although (Androulakis') tracking by EYP over three months in 2021 was acknowledged officially - by the prime minister himself - he was not afforded the opportunity until now either to be officially informed about the reasons the 'intrusion' on his cellphone had been ordered, or to initiate action before a court or in Parliament to identify this intrusion as illegal, which it truly was. In this manner, his right to 'effective remedy', established by Article 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), was violated."

In his complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, Androulakis is underlining the fact that neither current Greek legislation nor a new draft bill on EYP call for "a basic effective legal assistance for this purpose, something that ECHR has unequivocally condemned in a series of decisions over the years," the statement said.

By resorting to the European court, Androulakis hopes to guarantee all Greek citizens' rights to private life and freedom of communication for all, it added.

(ECHR's Article 13 on the right to an effective remedy states, "Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an  effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.")

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