Accused of being the author of a false bomb threat, a Franco-Canadian journalist was sentenced Thursday by a court in Athens (Greece) to six months in prison for “dissemination of false information” . According to a press release from Reporters Without Borderss, independent reporter Romain Chauvet, who works in Greece for several Canadian and French media, was arrested and placed in police custody on October 12, as he prepared to cover the repatriation of Canadian nationals from from Tel Aviv via Athens International Airport.
“As it was a non-commercial flight, it was not displayed on the airport screens,” he explained to Radio Canada. So I went to see a lady at the information desk to ask her what time this flight was going to arrive. » A few minutes later, he was arrested by the police who accused him of having “wanted to test the airport security systems”. “I would have told this lady [du guichet d’information] that there was a bomb on board the plane, he continued. I only asked what time a flight was arriving to do my work. I had the authorizations, my Canadian press card and, in a few minutes, your life stops and you find yourself behind bars in a cell. »
107th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index
RSF “is shocked by the conviction of a journalist based on a file without solid evidence, in a word-for-word procedure in which doubt should have benefited the accused”, indicates the organization in its press release, recalling that Greece “occupies 107th place out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index established by RSF in 2023, thus ranking last among the countries of the European Union”.