Georgios Karatzaferis
Georgios Karatzaferis (born August 11, 1947) is a Greek politician, who was expelled from the liberal-conservative New Democracy party, and currently leads the Popular Orthodox Rally (Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός). He is claimed to have ties with the most conservative wing of the Greek Orthodox Church. He is a Member of the European Parliament and vice-president of the Independence and Democracy group.
His party's views, ideas, and electoral campaigns are often broadcast and promoted by the private Greek television channel TeleAsty (former Telecity), which he founded and owns. The channel has been repeatedly accused in Greece of harbouring a xenophobic and extreme chauvinist agenda. The party's ideas are also disseminated in the party’s weekly newspaper, A1.
Career
Born in Athens in 1947, Karatzaferis became a producer of radio broadcasts at the age of 15 and a television producer at 22. In 1977 he founded R.TV.P.R. AE advertising body and he created the TV Press Video Review in 1983. In 1990 he established the radio and television stations Radio City and TeleAsty (the latter was initially known as TeleCity).
In 1983 he was offered a scholarship by Adenauer Foundation and also obtained an honours diploma from the London School of Journalism in 1994. He became a draftsman with the newspaper Alpha Ena in 2000. In the beginning of the 1980s he was also a columnist for Nea Poreia, the official publication of the political organization to which he belonged and was a MP. He also wrote contributed to daily newspapers including Eleftheros, Apogevmatini, and Eleftheros Typos. In 2005 he founded the Academy of Media Studies in Athens.
As a member of the Greek Parliament his responsibilities included the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Watchdog Committee, the Public Order Committee and the Press and Mass Media Committee (1993-2000). He was a member of the Committees on Public Administration and Foreign Affairs (1993-2004), Member of the National Communications' Confidentiality Protection Committee and Vice-Chairman of the Greco Spanish Friendship Association (1999).
In 2000 Karatzaferis was expelled from the New Democracy party for making inflammatory and derogatory remarks, before and after elections, including his claim that New Democracy should hire 100,000 of its voters in the public sector, and his allegations that the party's leader Costas Karamanlis blindly followed secretary Spiliotopoulos' wishes. Karatzaferis then founded Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos, the Popular Orthodox Rally.
He was elected MP for Athens in 1993 (when he broke the record for the MP with the biggest number of votes in the Modern History of Greece, a record that is still unchallenged), in 1996 and in 2000. He was also elected as a Prefectural Councilor in 2002 as head of the Me Kathari Kardia (With Clean Heart) party.
Karatzaferis is also the author of six books.
Karatzaferis has made claims about the September 11, 2001 attack such as this: "On September 21, 2001, Georgios Karatzaferis asked Foreign Minister Giorgos Papandreou to inform him as to whether he was aware of the articles published in two Israeli newspapers (Ha'aretz and Yedioth Ahronot), and if he had brought them to the attention of his European counterparts. According to George Karatzaferis, these publications reveal that the “4000 Jews working in the Twin Towers did not go to work on the day of the attack”; that “Ariel Sharon canceled his trip to New York that day where he was to speak at a celebration of Zionism”; and that “5 Jews were arrested while videotaping the destruction 4 hours after the event [and] are being held by the FBI for suspicious behavior interpreted as ridiculing the tragic event.”"
External links
References
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