The Council of Europe and Greece

The last thing that would have excited public opinion, be it in a spontaneous or contrived manner, in early July this past summer, was the announcement from the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) on the actions of various institutional tentacles of the Greek state. Slammed by a fresh heatwave after a June that was so hot even the Acropolis had to be shut down, the Greek public was in no position to ponder such mundane matters as the violations and violence committed by the Hellenic Police and Coast Guard - matters which are, after all, filed in the category of "ordinary" occurrences. And how could anyone even "stumble" upon such a news item later, when so little was said about it and even less written about it? The reflexes of the "serious" media are truly exceptional when it comes to whitewashing anything that can be construed as being harmful to the...