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1. Source of the legal provision[1]

Articles 1, 2 of Law 927/1979, Official Gazette 139/A/28-6-1979, on criminalization of acts or actions aimed at racial discrimination [Νόμος 927/1979, Νόμος 927 ΦΕΚ Α΄139/28.6.1979, Περί κολασμού πράξεων ή ενεργειών αποσκοπουσών εις φυλετικάς διακρίσεις], as amended by Law 4491/2017 [Νόμος 4491/2017].

Available in the original language via: kodiko.gr; <https://www.kodiko.gr/nomothesia/document/307515/nomos-927-1979>

 

2. Legal provision in English

Article 1

Public incitement to violence or hatred

  1. Whoever intentionally, publicly, orally or through the press, via the internet or by any other means or manner, incites, provokes, stimulates or incites acts or actions that may cause discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or group of persons, identified on the basis of race, colour, religion, ancestry, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender characteristics or disability, in a manner that endangers public order or poses a threat to the life, liberty or physical integrity of the aforementioned persons, shall be punished by imprisonment of three (3) months to three (3) years and a fine of five to twenty thousand (5,000 – 20,000) euros.

[…]

 

Article 2

Public approval or denial of crimes

  1. Whoever intentionally, publicly, orally or through the press, via the internet or by any other means or manner, approves, trivializes or maliciously denies the existence or seriousness of crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, the Holocaust and the crimes of Nazism that have been recognized by decisions of international courts or the Hellenic Parliament and such conduct is directed against a group of persons or a member thereof identified on the basis of race, color, religion, lineage, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender characteristics or disability, when such conduct is manifested in a manner that may incite violence or hatred or is of a threatening or abusive nature against such a group or a member thereof, shall be punished with the penalties of paragraph 1 of the previous article.

 

  1. If the act of the previous paragraph was committed by a public official or employee, during the exercise of the duties assigned to him, imprisonment of six (6) months to three (3) years and a fine of ten thousand to twenty-five thousand (10,000 – 25,000) euros shall be imposed.

 

3. Legal provision in the original language

Άρθρον 1

Δημόσια υποκίνηση βίας ή μίσους

  1. Όποιος με πρόθεση, δημόσια, προφορικά ή δια του τύπου, μέσω του διαδικτύου ή με οποιοδήποτε άλλο μέσο ή τρόπο, υποκινεί, προκαλεί, διεγείρει ή προτρέπει σε πράξεις ή ενέργειες που μπορούν να προκαλέσουν διακρίσεις, μίσος ή βία κατά προσώπου ή ομάδας προσώπων, που προσδιορίζονται με βάση τη φυλή, το χρώμα, τη θρησκεία, τις γενεαλογικές καταβολές, την εθνική ή εθνοτική καταγωγή, το σεξουαλικό προσανατολισμό, την ταυτότητα φύλου, χαρακτηριστικά φύλου ή την αναπηρία, κατά τρόπο που εκθέτει σε κίνδυνο τη δημόσια τάξη ή ενέχει απειλή για τη ζωή, την ελευθερία ή τη σωματική ακεραιότητα των ως άνω προσώπων, τιμωρείται με φυλάκιση τριών (3) μηνών έως τριών (3) ετών και με χρηματική ποινή πέντε έως είκοσι χιλιάδων (5.000 – 20.000) ευρώ.

[…]

 

Άρθρο 2

Δημόσια επιδοκιμασία ή άρνηση εγκλημάτων

  1. Όποιος με πρόθεση, δημόσια, προφορικά ή δια του τύπου, μέσω του διαδικτύου ή με οποιοδήποτε άλλο μέσο ή τρόπο, επιδοκιμάζει, ευτελίζει ή κακόβουλα αρνείται την ύπαρξη ή τη σοβαρότητα εγκλημάτων γενοκτονιών, εγκλημάτων πολέμου, εγκλημάτων κατά της ανθρωπότητας, του Ολοκαυτώματος και των εγκλημάτων του ναζισμού που έχουν αναγνωριστεί με αποφάσεις διεθνών δικαστηρίων ή της Βουλής των Ελλήνων και η συμπεριφορά αυτή στρέφεται κατά ομάδας προσώπων ή μέλους της που προσδιορίζεται με βάση τη φυλή, το χρώμα, τη θρησκεία, τις γενεαλογικές καταβολές, την εθνική ή εθνοτική καταγωγή, το σεξουαλικό προσανατολισμό, την ταυτότητα φύλου ή την αναπηρία, όταν η συμπεριφορά αυτή εκδηλώνεται κατά τρόπο που μπορεί να υποκινήσει βία ή μίσος ή ενέχει απειλητικό ή υβριστικό χαρακτήρα κατά μίας τέτοιας ομάδας ή μέλους της, τιμωρείται με τις ποινές της παραγράφου 1 του προηγούμενου άρθρου.

 

  1. Αν η πράξη της προηγούμενης παραγράφου τελέστηκε από δημόσιο λειτουργό ή υπάλληλο, κατά την άσκηση των ανατεθειμένων σε αυτόν καθηκόντων, επιβάλλεται φυλάκιση έξι (6) μηνών έως τριών (3) ετών και χρηματική ποινή δέκα χιλιάδων έως είκοσι πέντε χιλιάδων (10.000 – 25.000) ευρώ.

 

4. Key points

  • Greece possesses a specific Holocaust denial ban, which sanctions such conduct when it is carried out in a manner that may incite violence or hatred or when it is threatening or abusive.
  • In addition, Greece criminalises the denial, promotion or gross trivialization of genocides, war crimes and crimes against peace and humanity in general.
  • The direct reference to the Holocaust, present in this legal provision, was already included in the 1979 first version of the law. The law was later revised in 2014, and then again in 2017.
  • For the offence of denialism, committed in its basic form, the law stipulates a punishment of imprisonment for 6 months up to 3 years, and a fine of ten thousand to twenty-five thousand euros.

 

5. Background

Dated from 1979, the Greek law “on punishing acts or activities aiming at racial discrimination” (N. 927/1979) – also known as “the first anti-racist law”[2] – came into effect. But it was during the 1990s that Greece faced increasing challenges concerning discrimination, since almost a million people from Albania and newly independent states of the former USSR came into Greece as refugees, foreign migrants and ethnic Greeks. During that decade, a series of initiatives tried to regulate conditions for people that were entering the country, namely by the so-called Aliens Law,[3] and then by the Presidential Decrees 358/1997 and 359/1997. Laws concerning racial discrimination more directly, such as the 1979 law, also continued to apply.

 

Article 2 of this legal provision concerns the criminalisation of a person who “[…] publicly, orally or by word of mouth, or through the press, the Internet, or by any other means or manner, condones, trivialises or maliciously denies the existence or gravity of genocide crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity, the Holocaust and crimes of Nazism […]”.

 

However, Greece had already devoted special attention to other genocides through various parliamentary resolutions, namely the so-called Pontic Greek genocide,[4] the Armenian genocide,[5] and the Ionian Greek genocide.[6]

 

The European Commission introduced an infringement procedure for failing to adequately transpose EU Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia 2008/913/JHA.[7] The procedure was closed in October 2023, after Greece amended some of its hate speech regulations.

6. Application

Several reports have identified the 1979 law as ineffective in granting protection to minority and protected groups, even with the changes introduced by law N. 1419/1984 (that assured that “discrimination on the basis of religion is also punishable”) and by law N. 2910/2001 (which allowed the public prosecutor to bring charges ex officio).[8]

 

The 1979 law, in its revised version, was unsuccessfully applied in absentia to the German historian Heinz Richter who was charged with the denial of German Nazi crimes on the people of Crete in 2016, but ultimately acquitted. The law was also used in the case of a Member of the European Parliament, Ioannis Lagos, although not in the context of Holocaust denial.[9] Lagos, was a leader of the Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή), a Greek far-right political party that was deemed a criminal organization in 2020. The European Parliament decided to waive the immunity of Ioannis Lagos, a second time in 2023,[10] and he was subsequently convicted in Greece for incitement to violence or hatred. Similarly, it was also used in various cases relating to the incitement of hatred, albeit not the question of genocide denial, some of which ended up before international tribunals (e.g., ECtHR, Lenis v. Greece[11] and Sidiropoulos v. Greece,[12] as well as the 2008 UN Human Rights Committee decision in Vassilari v. Greece.[13]

 

In its older 1979 version, the law was used once in a Holocaust denial case, namely regarding the extremist writer Kostas Plevris, who was sentenced to fourteen months imprisonment in 2007. He was found to have incited hatred and racist violence through his denialist book ‘The Jews – The Whole Truth’.[14]

 

7. Controversies

The 2014 amendment was criticised by experts who pointed out its possible resulting limits  upon freedom of expression.[15] Others considered this legal provision insufficient, even ineffective, which became acutely visible in the Golden Dawn case mentioned above, and postulated its replacement with clearer legal provisions.[16]

 

8. Further reading

  • Bartrop P., Grimm E. (2024). ‘Greece’, The Holocaust: Country by Country, Bloomsbury, 2024, pp. 130-135.
  • Droumpouki A. M. (2015). ‘Shaping Holocaust memory in Greece: memorials and their public history’, National Identities, 18(2), 199-216.
  • Tourkochoriti I., The New Regulation Against Hate Speech in Greece: Strengths and Weaknesses (December 3, 2014). Council for European Studies, Reviews & Critical Commentary (CritCom) Columbia University, Forthcoming.[17]
  • ‘Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective’, MELA Project, <https://melaproject.org/>.

[1] The authors of the Compendium would like to thank Hélio Silva (University of Lisbon) for his guidance through Greek law.

[2] Modified over the years (mod. 1419/1984; 2910/2001; 4285/2014; 4491/2017; 5028/2023). It was specifically amended in 2014, through N. 4285/2014 – Amendment of Law 927/1979 (A 139), adapting to the decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law; cf. Analytical Report on Legislation: RAXEN National Focal Point GREECE – Antigone Information and Documentation Centre, Athens (by Nasos Theodorides; Ioannis N. Dimitrakopoulos), Vienna, 2004, p. 4. Available here: <https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/300-R4-LEG-EL.pdf>.

[3] Law 1975/199 (replacing N. 4310/1929).

[4] Law N. 2193/1994.

[5] Law N. 2397/1996.

[6] Law N. 2645/1998; see ‘Political Recognitions of Genocides avant la lettre: the Case of the Armenian Genocide’, by Dimitrios A. Kourtis (20.05.21). Available here: <https://opiniojuris.org/2021/05/20/political-recognitions-of-genocides-avant-la-lettre-the-case-of-the-armenian-genocide/>.

[7] European Commission ‘June infringements package: key decisions’ (EU Press Corner, 9 June 2021), <https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/inf_21_2743>.

[8] Analytical Report on Legislation: RAXEN National Focal Point GREECE – Antigone Information and Documentation Centre, Athens (by Nasos Theodorides; Ioannis N. Dimitrakopoulos), Vienna, 2004, p. 4. Available here: <https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/300-R4-LEG-EL.pdf>.

[9] European Parliament decision of 24 March 2022 on the request for waiver of the immunity of Ioannis Lagos: <https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0087_EN.html>.

[10] European Parliament Decision C/2023/411, available here: <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52023DP0060>; it was first waived in 2021 to allow Greek authorities to prosecute him in connection with his leadership role in the far-right Golden Dawn party, which had been classified as a criminal organization.

[11] Decision of 27 June 2023, application no. 47833/20, <https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-226442%22]}>.

[12] Judgment of 10 July 1998, application no. 57/1997/841/1047, <https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-58205%22]}>.

[13] See The Future of Free Speech, 1 August 2021: <https://futurefreespeech.org/vassilari-et-al-v-greece/>.

[14] Der Standard, ‘Faschistenführer verurteilt’ <https://www.derstandard.at/story/3150484/faschistenfuehrer-verurteilt> accessed 04.08.2024.

[15] ‘‘Αντιρατσιστικός’ νόμος και ελευθερία της έκφρασης’, H Αυγή, 23 September 2014: <https://www.avgi.gr/politiki/112511_antiratsistikos-nomos-kai-eleytheria-tis-ekfrasis?amp>.

[16] ‘Ο αντιρατσιστικός νόμος, ο ‘ρατσιστής’ ιερέας και ο Δημητράς’, Liberal, 25 November 2019: <https://www.liberal.gr/apopsi/o-antiratsistikos-nomos-o-ratsistis-iereas-kai-o-dimitras>.

[17] Available at SSRN: <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2533498>.

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