Tag Archives: Greece

Günter Wallraff Explained

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Research methods

Wallraff came to prominence thanks to his striking journalistic research methods and several major books on lower class working conditions and tabloid journalism. This style of research is based on what the reporter experiences personally after covertly becoming part of the subgroup under investigation. Wallraff would construct a fictional identity so that he was not recognisable as a journalist.

In the German newspaper Die Zeit of 1977 Walraff formulates a sentence that is central to his work: “If I want to make myself the mouthpiece of the voiceless who have little to say even though they have a lot to say, that means to me that I am one of them, at least temporarily.”
Undercover journalism

Wallraff first took up this kind of investigative journalism in 1969 when he published 13 unerwünschte Reportagen (“13 undesired reports”) in which he described what he experienced when acting the parts of an alcoholic, a homeless person, and a worker in a chemicals factory.

He travelled to Greece in May 1974 at the time of the Ioannides military dictatorship. While in Syntagma Square, he protested against human right violations. He was arrested and tortured by the police as he purposely did not carry on him any papers that could identify him as a foreigner. After his identity was revealed, Wallraff was convicted and sentenced to 14 months in jail. He was released in August, after the end of the dictatorship.

https://everything.explained.today/G%c3%bcnter_Wallraff/

German Journalist Once Jailed in Greece During the Junta, Revisits Korydallos Prison

Wallraff traveled to Greece in May 1974. While in Syntagma Square, he protested against human right violations in the country and was arrested and tortured by the police. After his identity was revealed, he was convicted and sentenced to 14 months in jail. He was released in August, after the end of the dictatorship.

https://greekreporter.com/2017/02/24/german-journalist-once-jailed-in-greece-during-the-junta-revisits-korydallos-prison/

Günter Wallraff: Undercover journalist

His investigative methods have led to the creation of the Swedish verb ‘wallraffa’ meaning “to expose misconduct from the inside by assuming a role” which has been officially included in word list of the Swedish Academy.

https://circleof13.blogspot.com/2008/12/gunter-wallraff-undercover-journalist.html

GREECE Interrogation Department-Military Police, Bouboulinas, KEVOP, Leros: The junta’s torture chambers and the brutality of its interrogators

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According to official records, from 1967 to 1974 more than 90,000 people were arrested. The vast majority endured beatings, electric shocks, mock executions and every imaginable cruelty.

[Note: It is never mentioned that the Military Police torture facility at present-day ‘Liberty Park’ is a block away from the U.S, embassy. Or that former victims at the trials of their torturers testified that masked American interrogators would emerge from tunnel entrances to perform mock executions.]

https://en.protothema.gr/2025/11/16/interrogation-department-military-police-bouboulinas-kevop-leros-the-juntas-torture-chambers-and-the-brutality-of-its-interrogators/

A Trip Back to Bouboulinas Street, the Torture Prison During the Greek Junta [CIA daughter meets former inmate]

For seven years between 1967 and 1974 the Greek military junta used a building at Bouboulinas Street, Athens as a prison where thousands were tortured. Among them a Belgian national named Roland Baumann who recently returned to the infamous building.

https://greekreporter.com/2023/12/04/bouboulinas-street-greek-torture-prison-junta/

GREECE Why We Still Talk About the Polytechnic Uprising, 52 Years Later

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But the Polytechnic is not only the moment the tank entered. It is three days and a few hours during which tens of thousands of young people lived a revolutionary surge that swept the entire country away. Boys and girls who stood against the junta, overthrowing at the same time everything imposed on them until then by the oppressive society of their parents, with the harsh morals of the era.

For as long as the occupation lasted, the students lived a form of direct democracy. They cooked together, slept together, sang and discussed politics, and co-decided everything. At the same time, they risked everything for freedom.

https://www.tovima.com/society/why-we-still-talk-about-the-polytechnic-uprising-52-years-later/

Polytechnic Uprising 1973: The First Sparks of Defiance

In November 1973, a wave of student unrest swept through Greek universities, setting in motion the events that would ignite the Athens Polytechnic uprising and mark the beginning of the end for the military dictatorship.

https://www.tovima.com/vima-history/polytechnic-uprising-1973-the-first-sparks-of-defiance/

Who are Italy’s FAI/FRI anarchists — now designated as terrorists by the U.S.?

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Why it matters: The move targets a transnational ecosystem of anarchist cells active across Europe. The designations restrict access to the U.S. financial system and expose individuals and entities to primary and secondary sanctions.

The groups targeted:

Antifa Ost (Germany): linked to assaults on individuals identified as “fascists” or part of the far-right scene; accused of attacks in Budapest in 2023; labelled a terrorist organisation by Hungary in 2025.

FAI/FRI (Italy) is the most structured and long-standing of the designated groups, with two decades of insurrectionist activity.

Armed Proletarian Justice (Greece): responsible for attempted and successful IED attacks against government targets, including a 2023 explosive device near Greece’s riot police headquarters.

Revolutionary Class Self-Defence (Greece): claimed two IED attacks between 2024 and 2025, citing anti-capitalist motives and solidarity with Palestine.

https://decode39.com/12412/who-are-italys-fai-fri-anarchists-now-designated-as-terrorists-by-the-u-s/