Greek Gays Attacked

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Amfi is the title of the quarterly magazine of the gay movement in Greece.

This week its trial will open in Athens. It is charged with publishing an obscene poem by. Nicos Spanias.

If found guilty it will face a fine of up to £1.000 which would be a crippling blow to the magazine.

As Greek Gays Under Attack -an informative pamphlet just published by the Amfi Defence Fis trial is s fly one instanlear, a general attack on gays now being carried out by the Greek state.

The other instances mentioned are numerous examples of censorship and the proposed reintroduction of the notorious parliamentary Bill "Concerning the Protection from Venereal Diseases and Regulation of Related Matters".

This vaguely worded Bill grants wide-ranging - powers against prostitutes and anyone suspected of "soliciting in public" , "provoking" the public by importuning, or assuming indecent bodily attitudes or movement"

Anyone convicted of these vague offences can get anything up to one year in jail or be subjected to compulsory clinical and lab tests under police supervision.

A similar police state Bill was withdrawn two years ago largely because of international pressure from the gay movement.

Protest vote

In particular the Dutch parliament was induced to vote an almost unanimous protest to the Greek government and the Dutch government was forced to threaten to veto moves towards the incorporation of Greece into the EEC.

The Amfi Defence Fund pamphlet correctly focusses attention on the shoddy role played in all this by the main workers' parties in Greece.

The pro-Moscow Communist Party (the KKE) holds the position that gays are "hangovers of bourgeois degeneracy destined to die out with the advent of socialism" • At least the KKE seems to have stopped its earlier policy of trying to prevent AKOE, the main gay organisation, from marching on demonstrations.

The reformist PASOK, according to the pamphlet, put up no. resistance at all to the Bill and no political party or group came out specifically against it.

Since then the Eurocommunists and some left groups Save Lzi=o someahar less LUM&-! 22 E0× 150:203 to the question die 7EzE But it remains ire ta: I the face of the new legal attack gays and others threatened by this oppressive bill cannot yet count on much support from those organisations in Greece which claim to be socialist.

The pamphlet also reveals several cases of bizarre censorship.

The National Films Censorship Committee recently unanimously banned the British film Nighthawks (by Ron Peck and Paul Hallam) and Pasolini's Salo.

Nighthawks, they say, is "a propaganda piece for the spread of homosexuality ... The hero is a teacher in a school of minors ... From the above it is concluded that both the content and the scenes of the film dangerously undermine the sane traditions of the Greek people and the accepted moral disgust for homosexuality and will have a destructive effect on Greek youth"

Film censorship of this kind is exercised under laws passed under the Nazi occupation and anotber passed in 1969 under Tisacatico aí toe IT LaT Fould be vETy sEverE blows to democratic rights in Greece and must be vigorously resisted by socialists in Greece and internationally.

*Donations to the Amfi Defence Fund to Lloyds Bank, Gants Hill Branch, 377 Eastern Avenue, Ilford Essex.

*The pamphlet Greek Gays Under Attack is available from Micky Silva, 75 Otley Drive, Ilford, Essex IG2 6QX. Send 45p including postage and large addressed envelope.

*The Amfi Benefit Showin aid of the Greek Gay Movement (AKOE) will take place on Sunday July 27 at 8 pm, Albany Empire Theatre, Creek Road, Deptford, London SE8.