Within one month, the author has been notified twice by the Police that his published work is the subject of an internal investigation.
Last Friday (5/4), we received a phone call from a police officer informing us of their desire to arrange a meeting regarding our article published on March 26 about the recently announced two-month police operation against organized crime.
Of course, we responded (orally for now) that we have nothing to declare, invoking journalistic privilege. An identical inquiry was ordered (of which we were informed on March 1st) regarding another one of our reports published on February 12, titled: ‘Police face obstacles in mobile data extraction‘.
Our response then was the same (yet another investigation was ordered in March regarding a colleague’s article from another outlet).
In both instances, the author placed the Police’s handling of these matters under journalistic scrutiny. To cut to the chase, our message to the instigators of this tactic is that such actions undermine freedom of the press and, by extension, the public interest.
At the same time, officers with significant work to do are occupied with time-consuming internal investigations that are doomed to lead nowhere, distracting them from their duties.
Rest assured that we will act in a manner that safeguards journalistic privilege and freedom of the press.
Φ.Μ.
