Asteris Masouras

I'm a freelance photojournalist, social media consultant, digital rights activist & open source software engineer from Thessaloniki, Greece. I've been blogging and doing freelance journalism since 2004 about human / digital rights, citizen journalism & social media, environmental, local & open source issues in Greek & English. I'm a co-founder of digitalrights.gr & the co-host of a monthly internet radio show about open source & digital rights news on radiobubble.gr. My photography work can be found on Flickr. Also on Twitter, LinkedIn, NowPublic

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Latest posts by Asteris Masouras

Video: Anti-fascist Solidarity from Turkey to Greece

“We made this video to tell you we are with us. We had nothing more in mind.” A moving video with testimonials of anti-fascist solidarity from Turkish activists in the memory of Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas, slain by neonazis in Athens last month, was uploaded on YouTube, subtitled in Greek. The...

#Justice4Trayvon Rallies Across America

  17 July 2013

Thousands joined peaceful protests held in many U.S. cities after the acquittal in Florida on July 15, 2013 of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin. Protesters condemned the “Stand Your Ground” laws, legislation in effect in more than 20 states that allow the use of force as self-defense when a...

VIDEO: Police Brutality Under the Acropolis

  11 July 2013

Blogger alepouda remixed footage from a 2007 Greek tourism campaign promoting the “true Greek experience” with a video of police aggression against protesters at a rally on 10 July, 2013 in Thisseio in support of anarchist Kostas Sakkas, accused of terrorism and detained without trial since December 2010, who is in the terminal stages of a...

Chronicles of the Unemployed in Greece

  22 April 2013

Journalist and author Christoforos Kasdaglis started The Diary of an Unemployed [el], a project to collect stories [el] and data [el] on Greek unemployment, consistently driven to record figures for years on end by the debt and austerity crisis. 27% of Greeks were jobless in January, a rate that has tripled since the crisis began in 2009,...

You're Sponsoring Neonazis on Greek TV!

  12 April 2013

@northaura: #xa_advertising is about a twitter movement protest by email in #Greece to push advertisers off ever again supporting pro-neonazi TV shows. Blogger @ypopto_mousi started a campaign to inform the sponsors [el] of a highly controversial SKAI TV panel featuring four neonazi Golden Dawn MPs, that they are sponsoring hate speech. The blogger is...

Greek Government Shutters Athens Indymedia

  12 April 2013

A leading alternative news site in Greece, Athens Indymedia announced it was being suppressed by Greek judicial authorities, along with two radio stations, and provided a Tor link [el] for alternate access. Potmos asserted on the significance of the site for independent news in Greece: @potmos: Fast and accurate info posted on Athens #Indymedia led to life sentence...

Video: Crisis Engenders Greek Documentary Boom

  18 March 2013

The 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival includes five crisis-themed Greek films in its lineup. As the Festival, and Greece at large, continues to labor under the mounting debt and austerity crisis, fiction and documentary filmmakers alike are increasingly focusing their work on its effects on society.

#Followme: Greek Documentary Explores Twitter

  18 March 2013

@andriotakis: Στο τρέιλερ του #followme οι @jeffjarvis @evgenymorozov @drandakis @vatraxokoritso @Urfurslaag @constantnos @asteris http://youtu.be/5OD_9oZXlH8  Videographer and author Manolis Andriotakis namechecks Greek tweeps and acclaimed critics he interviewed for his documentary on Twitter, prior to its’ screening at the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

Video: Greece Austerity Protests Teargassed

  11 March 2013

A reportedly peaceful attempt to revive the mass anti-austerity “indignant protests” of 2011 on the evening of March 10 in Syntagma square, Athens, was met with teargas and police brutality, as shown in this video of an arrest, uploaded by Eleftherotypia daily:

Crowdmapping Media Layoffs in Greece

  8 March 2013

Journalist Ioanna Iliadi has created a crowdmap to monitor press layoffs in Greece, mounting in numbers and frequency, as an already brewing media crisis has been compounded by the financial crisis.

Greece: “Gods Just Got Bored Playing Dice”

  24 December 2012

German daily Handelsblatt reportedly picked Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras as politician of the year, after yet another round of austerity measures, another bailout tranche to Greece, a warning from the European Commission of more to come, and endless ‘GRexit’ speculation (on whether Greece will exit the Eurozone and default). Financial blogger Albert John offers...

Greek Journalist Arrested for Publishing List of Alleged Tax Evaders

  29 October 2012

Greek journalist and editor of Hot Doc magazine, Kostas Vaxevanis, tweeted his arrest and posted a video message [el] a few hours after his magazine published a leaked list of over 2,000 names of Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland, allegedly the “Lagarde list” that Greek governments had misplaced for years.

Greece: Petition to Remove Golden Dawn MP from Non-Discrimination Committee

  18 October 2012

The Golden Dawn party has become notorious for its blatant anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric and has been responsible for perpetrating attacks against Jews and foreigners.” The European Union of Jewish Students have created a petition urging the Council of Europe Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Parliamentary Assembly to remove...

Greece: Theater Critic Assaulted by Neo-Nazi and Religious Protesters

  14 October 2012

Religious groups and neo-nazis protested against gay-themed play Corpus Christi in Athens on 11 October, 2012. Deeming it blasphemous, they assaulted a theater critic and forced the cancellation of the performance. Netizens reacted in shocked outrage, demanding an end to the unchecked spiral of violence perpetrated by neo-nazis in recent months.

Greece: Debunking a ‘Coup That Never Happened’

  1 October 2012

Impressive reportage from fantasy land, but no knowledgeable editor with a soul was at hand to throw it in the trash. In a Twitlonger post [el], journalist Yiannis Bogiopoulos debunks a controversial expose published in Sunday newspaper To Vima about “a coup that never happened“, and dismisses “loaded” conjectures as to why...

Greece: Photo ‘Road Trip’ Around Europe Debt Crisis

  27 July 2012

‘We Are The Pigs‘ – in reference to the derogatory PIGS acronym – is a crowdfunded photojournalism ‘road trip’ venture, to collect people's stories from European countries affected by the debt crisis. The project, started by two young Central European women journalists frustrated with the stereotypical hyperbole and abuse levelled in the media...

Greece: Immigrant Knifed on Election Night

  22 June 2012

Violence against immigrants has been steadily mounting in Athens since last year's spate of attacks, especially before the recent elections which saw the extreme right Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) party gaining 18 seats in parliament. A video surreptitiously filmed in an Athens subway station on election night, June 17, and captioned in English, fleetingly shows...

Greece: TEDxThessaloniki 2012, the Courage to Create

  16 May 2012

Twelve hours long, with more than 20 speakers and performers, over 700 attendees and 5.000 livestream viewers from 57 countries; on Saturday May 12, TEDx Thessaloniki 2012 provided an inspiring intermission from the agonizing climax of the financial crisis embroiling Greece.