Georgios Karatzaferis

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Georgios Karatzaferis (born August 11, 1947) is an extreme-right Greek politician, who was expelled from the liberal-conservative New Democracy party, and currently leads the Popular Orthodox Rally (Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός). He is a Member of the European Parliament and vice-president of the Independence and Democracy group which includes the Swedish June List.

His party's views, ideas, and electoral campaigns are often broadcast and promoted by the private Greek TV channel TeleAsty (former Telecity), which he founded and owns. The party's ideas are also disseminated in the party’s weekly newspaper, A1.

Recently, Karatzaferis announced his will to be candidate Mayor of Thessaloniki. Elections will take place in autumn 2006.

1 Biography and career
2 Statements and controversy
3 External links
4 References
5 Quotations
6 See also

[edit] Biography and career

Born in Athens in 1947, Karatzaferis became a producer of radio broadcasts at the age of 15 and a television producer at 22. In 1977 he founded R.TV.P.R. AE advertising body and he created the TV Press Video Review in 1983. In 1990 he established the radio and television stations Radio City and TeleAsty (the latter was initially known as TeleCity).

In 1983 he was offered a scholarship by Adenauer Foundation and also obtained an honours diploma from the London School of Journalism in 1994. He became a draftsman with the newspaper Alpha Ena in 2000. In the beginning of the 1980s he was also a columnist for Nea Poreia, the official publication of the political organization to which he belonged and was a MP. He also wrote contributed to daily newspapers including Eleftheros, Apogevmatini, and Eleftheros Typos. In 2005 he founded the Academy of Communications Studies in Athens.

As a member of the Greek Parliament his responsibilities included the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Watchdog Committee, the Public Order Committee and the Press and Mass Media Committee (1993-2000). He was a member of the Committees on Public Administration and Foreign Affairs (1993-2004), Member of the National Communications' Confidentiality Protection Committee and Vice-Chairman of the Greco Spanish Friendship Association (1999).

In 2000 Karatzaferis was expelled from the New Democracy party for what were considered to constitute derogatory and inflammatory remarks, amongst which were his call for the party to "hire 100.000 of our boys" in the public sector, and his accusations that the party's leader Costas Karamanlis was uncritically following Spiliotopoulos' wishes. Karatzaferis proceeded to found Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos, the Popular Orthodox Rally.

While on the New Democracy ticket, he had been elected Representative for Athens in 1993 (breaking the record for largest number of votes in the Modern History of Greece, a record that is still unchallenged), in 1996 and in 2000. In 2002, after being expelled from New Democracy, he unsuccesfuly ran for the position of yper-nomarchis in Athens, where he was elected as a Prefectural Councilor on the Me Kathari Kardia (With Clean Heart) party. In the National Elections of 2004, his party failed to tally the 3% threshold of popular votes, and did not enter the parliament. In the subsequent European Parliament Elections of 2004, LAOS received 4.2% of the votes and Karatzaferis became member of the European Parliament. There he became, from the very first year, the recordholder MP in the number of questions to the EP (more than 422). He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Joint Parliamentary Committee, member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Delegation to the EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee, the Delegation for relations with Mercosur and the Delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and substitute member of Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners .

Karatzaferis is also the author of six books.

[edit] Statements and controversy

Karatzaferis and his media (Teleasty channel, A1 newspaper) have been repeatedly accused in Greece of harbouring an extremist far-right, xenophobic and chauvinist agenda. Controversial statements he has made include [1] stating that :-

"Hitler was a mere college-boy compared to the Jews". (25/9/01)

He has also asked to "release Dertilis out of prison today, and he will take Constantinople for you within 5 years". Dertilis was an officer of the Greek military Dictatorship (1967-1974), convicted to life imprisonment for the murder of 19-year-old Michael Mirogiannis in cold blood, during the Athens Polytechnic Uprising. (25/9/01)

On September 21, 2001, Karatzaferis asked Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou to inform him as to whether he was aware of articles published in two Israeli newspapers (Ha'aretz and Yedioth Ahronot), and if he had brought them to the attention of his European counterparts. According to George Karatzaferis, these publications revealed that the “4000 Jews working in the Twin Towers did not go to work on the day of the attack”; that “Ariel Sharon canceled his trip to New York that day where he was to speak at a celebration of Zionism”; and that “5 Jews were arrested while videotaping the destruction 4 hours after the event [and] are being held by the FBI for suspicious behavior interpreted as ridiculing the tragic event". In fact, no such article has ever appeared in either newspaper. The "4000 Jews did not attend work" is an antisemitic urban myth, propagated by Islamic fundamentalist media, and debunked by noted Urban Legends Referrence Page Snopes [2]. According to the US Department of State, between 10% and 15% of the 9-11 attacks' victims were Jewish, which correlates very closely to the overall number of Jewish inhabitants in the area [3].

Karatzaferis has also made statements referring to an "Auschwitz myth", and characterising Jews as "God-murderers" (θεοκτόνους), and "enemies of our nation". (25/9/01)

On a separate occasion, he related through his television broadcast his conviction that "1/3 of Greek congressmen are passive homosexuals with Albanian stallions".

In June 2002, he traced the exact number of Freemasons in the Greek parliament to 136, out of 300 parliamentarians.

In 2006, Georgios Karatzaferis criticised singer Anna Vissi's video clip for the song "Everything" claiming that it discredited Greece, to the point of asking for a relevant inquiry in the European Parliament. The theme of the video clip is that the protagonist has a night full of troubles while wandering in Athens. Mr. Karatzaferis claimed that the video clip was defamatory to the country's reputation in the eyes of future tourists.

Karatzaferis has defended controversial French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen against the "Jewish pens that curse him. They are the same pens that curse and accuse us".