Surveillance and economic pressure undermine Greek media freedom, report finds

World Greecemediapress freedomTop News Surveillance and economic pressure undermine Greek media freedom, report finds 53470609165 E62c0a262f O Relevant News Weekend agenda: three spots worth the trip 18 September 2026 Surveillance and economic pressure undermine Greek media freedom, report finds 18 September 2026 Cloudy with 31 degree peak on Friday 18 September 2026 Theodosis Pipis 18 September 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber Greece presents a revealing question for modern democracies: what happens when the institutions designed to hold political power to account remain formally intact, but become increasingly vulnerable to pressure? That question lies at the heart of Human Rights Watch’s 2025 assessment of media freedom in Greece. Its findings point beyond individual attacks on journalists to a broader ecosystem of surveillance, political pressure, concentrated media ownership, abusive lawsuits and economic leverage. Taken together, HRW argues, these pressures can encourage journalists and media organisations to become more cautious about what they investigate and publish, threatening both media freedom and the rule of law. Greek MEP and Vice President of the Left (GUE/NGL) group, Konstantinos Arvanitis told en.philenews that “the crisis of press freedom in Greece is a particularly acute symptom of a deeper and international institutional and social crisis. The problem is not simply that some journalists are being pressured, but that the news media operate within a closed system of interdependence, in which political power, major business groups, and the press intersect in dangerous ways.” “At the same time, the oligarchic concentration of media ownership, the lack of transparency in the allocation of advertising, and the precarious working conditions of journalists severely restrict genuine pluralism,” he added. Yet Greece is not an authoritarian state. Elections remain competitive, opposition parties operate openly, governments change through the ballot box, and journalists continue to publish investigations that challenge those in power. That is precisely what makes the Greek case important. Democratic erosion does not always arrive through a dramatic rupture. Newspapers do not necessarily have to be closed, opposition parties banned or elections overturned. Democratic accountability can weaken more quietly, as the practical conditions for exercising formal rights become increasingly constrained. The Predator spyware scandal illustrates the problem. It was not simply a story about surveillance technology, but about the conditions required for investigative journalism to function. If journalists suspect their communications are being monitored, sources may hesitate to speak. If reporting on powerful interests can trigger costly litigation, editors may become more cautious. And if media organisations depend on politically connected owners or state advertising, economic pressures can influence editorial decisions. None of these pressures, individually, amounts to the abolition of press freedom. The more difficult question is what happens when they accumulate, and whether, beneath the formal machinery of democracy, the space for independent scrutiny is gradually becoming narrower. Greece’s uncomfortable position Reporters Without Borders currently ranks Greece 86th out of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index. That is an improvement on its 89th-place ranking in 2025, but Greece remains a striking outlier within the European Union. Its economic and political indicators are particularly weak. This raises the question: why is a member of the European Union performing so poorly on an indicator that is supposed to reflect one of the foundations of liberal democracy? And that question becomes more significant when placed alongside concerns about judicial independence, surveillance, media ownership and institutional accountability. The European Commission itself treats media pluralism and freedom as one of the four pillars of its annual Rule of Law assessment, alongside the justice system, anti-corruption framework and institutional checks and balances. Media freedom is part of the infrastructure through which citizens find out whether governments are behaving properly. Therefore, a weakened press creates a feedback problem: if journalists face greater obstacles in investigating government, citizens have less information with which to hold government accountable. The journalist who discovered he was being watched One of the most striking cases in the HRW report is that of freelance journalist Stavros Malichudis. In November 2021, Malichudis discovered from a newspaper report that Greece’s intelligence service, EYP, had apparently been monitoring him. His work had included reporting on an unaccompanied Syrian migrant child held in detention on Kos. Malichudis told HRW that the discovery was frightening, and that it took him time to return to reporting normally. His case illustrates something important about surveillance: its impact does not end when the monitoring stops. The knowledge that a journalist may be watched changes the relationship between reporter and source. Malichudis told HRW that he became afraid of meeting sources and worried about exposing them. In other words, surveillance can attack investigative journalism without ever preventing publication of a particular story. Predatorgate: when investigating surveillance becomes dangerous in itself The story became even more consequential with the discovery that journalist Thanasis Koukakis, who had been investigating banking and business stories, had been targeted with Predator spyware. According to HRW, Koukakis’s phone was infected with the spyware, which can provide extensive access to a device, including communications, photographs, passwords, location and microphone and camera functions. It was subsequently reported that EYP had also formally wiretapped his phone. Then came the revelation that PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis had also been placed under surveillance by EYP and that there had been an attempt to infect his phone with Predator. The significance for press freedom goes beyond targeting journalists as political figures have also been targetted. HRW interviewed seven journalists who said they either had evidence or strong suspicions that they had been surveilled. Three believed they had been targeted specifically because of their investigation into the surveillance scandal itself. The economics of silence The country’s prolonged economic crisis, from 2008 to 2019, and the austerity measures that accompanied it severely weakened news organisations. Newsrooms shrank and resources for reporting declined, while journalists faced low wages and weaker employment protections. The report argues that this made journalists more vulnerable to editorial interference and more likely to censor themselves for fear of losing their jobs. A survey of 1,300 Greek journalists cited by HRW found that 47 percent feared losing their jobs because of their reporting, while 55 percent reported experiencing payment delays. Meanwhile, 80 percent said they felt pressured by time constraints to publish stories that had not been sufficiently researched. This economic insecurity matters because it changes the calculation facing a journalist. When losing a job can mean losing an already precarious income, editorial pressure becomes harder to resist. A reporter does not need to be explicitly told to drop a sensitive investigation; the knowledge that a story could anger an editor, owner or powerful advertiser may be enough to make the risks seem too high. In Greece, HRW argues, the consequences of the economic crisis therefore extend beyond smaller newsrooms and lower salaries: they have helped create conditions in which journalists are more vulnerable to editorial interference and self-censorship. Economic weakness becomes, in effect, another pressure on press freedom, less visible than surveillance or a lawsuit, but potentially just as effective. The health of democracy is also measured in the freedom of people to watch those in power Greece is still a democracy. Its journalists continue to report and its citizens continue to vote. But the health of a democracy is also measured in the freedom of the people who watch those in power. When those journalists begin looking over their shoulders, counting the cost of every investigation or wondering whether their sources are safe, something important has already changed. For a journalist, the consequences can begin with something as simple as a phone call. A source hesitates. A meeting is moved. A story takes longer to publish. A reporter wonders who might be listening. None of these moments, on its own, looks like censorship. But together they describe the environment that Human Rights Watch found in Greece: one in which journalists can still publish, but where doing so can come with surveillance, legal threats, political pressure and the risk of losing a job. “Self-censorship demonstrates that press freedom requires genuine independence from both visible and hidden centers of influence, that is, a break with the mechanism of excessive concentration of power. Only in this way can we safeguard pluralism, dignity in the workplace, independent journalism, and, above all, society’s right to receive objective information and to participate meaningfully in democratic accountability,” according to Arvanitis. Read more: Cyprus at centre of Predator spyware lawsuit following Greek convictions Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Weekend agenda: three spots worth the trip Cloudy with 31 degree peak on Friday Brazilian pair remain in custody over Kornos fire after appeal rejected Cyprus to use Digital Citizen for social media age checks Erhurman: conditions for new 5+1 meeting “not yet met”, heads to New York September 23 Cyprus ranks second globally on healthcare access satisfaction, survey finds Key prosecution witness completes lengthy testimony in Phedonos rape trial Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.