Journalist arrested on suspicion of leaking state secrets after publishing the (publicly available) text of a recently passed law

A day after Reporters Without Borders published its 2014 World Press Freedom Index according to which press freedom Greece has suffered a ‘dizzying’ decline over the past five years, the authorities seem eager to prove the NGO’s case.

Journalist Popi Christodoulidou was summoned to appear at police headquarters to testify over a blog post she had written two days ago concerning joint operations being allegedly conducted by police and the Coast Guard’s special ‘frogmen’ units.

The blogpost in question (in Greek), contains little more information than the text of a recently passed law that provides for joint operations in certain circumstances between police and Coast Guard Special Underwater Units outside of the Coast Guard’s normal jurisdiction. Ms Christodoulidou, a journalist with 35 years of experience, alleges that she had received information from frogmen protesting that they were regularly required to guard ‘sensitive targets’ normally under the police’s authority. “We looked into the issue and show here that there is a law that provides for just this instance passed on 9/12/2013. We publish it here for your information,” she writes.

According to Ms Christodoulidou the post prompted the Athens Prosecutor for Misdemeanours to order a preliminary investigation as to whether laws regarding military secrecy had been violated by the post, despite the fact that the law is a matter of public record and little other information was provided in the post.

In fact, according to Ms Christodoulidou the police had rebranded the text of the law as a ‘confidential military document’. There is now a possibility that Ms Christodoulidou will be placed under arrest if she refuses to take down the blogpost.

According to the journalist, the investigation by the authorities amounts to, “an unprovoked attack which has as a goal the creation of climate of fear against all journalists who continue to tell the truth, cannot be purchased, are not cowed by power and are dedicated to providing citizens with truthful and substantive reporting.”