Greece: Continued judicial harassment against migrants’ rights defender Panayote Dimitras

New information
GRE 002 / 0922 / OBS 067.3
Judicial harassment
Greece
26 February 2026

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has received new information and requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Greece.

New information:

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders has been informed about the continued judicial harassment of Mr Panayote Dimitras. Mr Dimitras is the co-founder and spokesperson of the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) - an NGO engaged in the protection of human and minority rights and in the fight against discrimination in Greece - and a former member of OMCT’s General Assembly.

On 22 January 2026, the Athens Three-Member Appeals Court published its decision in which it rejected Mr Dimitras’s appeal in the civil case for “alleged insult” brought against him by the Greek extreme right leader Mr Failos Kranidiotis. On 12 October 2023, the Athens Multi-Member First Instance Court (Judgment 3577/2023) had ruled that GHM’s complaint was libelous and had awarded Mr Kranidiotis 3,000 Euros in moral damages. As a consequence of the rejection, Mr Dimitras was ordered to pay a monetary compensation of 5,318.58 Euros to Mr Kranidiotis (including the 3,000 Euros initially awarded, 500 Euros in legal costs, as well as interests and fees) and to publish on his social media a summary of the court’s decision.

The Observatory recalls that the lawsuit stems from a complaint that Mr Dimitras himself had filed in 2021 against Greek extreme-right leader Failos Kranidiotis. On 9 October 2019, Mr Kranidiotis, president of the far-right party “New Right”, published a tweet in which he referred to newly arrived refugees and immigrants as “illegal plunderers”. Mr Dimitras reported the tweet as racist, and it was later removed for violating Twitter’s policy on the publication of racist content.

On 12 October 2019, Mr Dimitras and the Racist Crimes Observatory submitted a complaint against Mr Kranidiotis for xenophobic hate speech, arguing that the tweet constituted public incitement to hatred. On the same day, Mr Dimitras published the text of the complaint on his Twitter account and on the website racistcrimeswatch.wordpress.com. On 16 December 2019, a prosecutor’s office dismissed the complaint submitted by Mr Dimitras as legally unfounded.

On 22 January 2020, Mr Kranidiotis filed a civil lawsuit against Mr Dimitras before the First-Member Court of First Instance of Athens for aggravated defamation and insult, claiming that the complaint and related publications constituted an insult and harmed his honour and reputation.

On 30 June 2021, Mr Kranidiotis summoned Mr Dimitras before the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Athens, pursuing his civil claim for moral damages. Both Courts dismissed the charge of aggravated defamation and retained only the offense of insult.

On 12 October 2023, the Athens Multi-Member Court of First Instance, in Judgment No. 3577/2023, ruled that the complaint filed by Greek Helsinki Monitor was libellous and awarded Mr Kranidiotis 3,000 Euros in moral damages. The Court further ordered Mr Dimitras, within 15 days of service of the final decision, to publish a summary of the judgment on his X account and on the website of the Racist Crimes Observatory.

On 18 September 2025, the appeals filed by both parties against the first instance judgment were heard before the Athens Three-Member Appeals Court. The Court dismissed both appeals.

On 22 January 2026, the Court published its verdict. It dismissed Mr Dimitras’ appeal on the grounds that he had committed the offense of insult and had allegedly harmed Mr Kranidiotis’ honour and reputation, thereby rendering the financial sanction enforceable. The Court also dismissed Mr Kranidiotis’ cross-appeal, considering that the compensation imposed at first instance was reasonable and that the legal conditions for imposing personal detention, as requested by Mr Kranidiotis, were not met.

This appears to be yet another episode in the long process of judicial harassment against Panayote Dimitras, in what the Observatory considers to be a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP).

This judgement is only one of the many abusive acts and proceedings brought against Panayote Dimitras over the past few years, as outlined in previous Observatory alerts dated 23 January 2025, 15 August 2024, 6 May 2024, and 23 December 2022, among others.

The Observatory considers this long process of judicial harassment against Panayote Dimitras constitutes a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), a form of abusive and meritless litigation that is initiated to intimidate, exhaust and silence individuals or organisations engaging in public interest work, including the defence of human rights, by burdening them with lengthy, costly and difamatory legal proceedings.

The Observatory recalls that on 27 February 2024 , the European Parliament adopted the Anti-SLAPP Directive in its first readingto curb the weaponisation of litigation against journalists, civil society organisations and human rights defenders. It provides cross-border safeguards, early dismissal of manifestly unfounded claims, and a right to compensation. Now in its transposition phase, EU Member States are expected to align national laws with the text.

The Observatory strongly condemns the enforcement of compensations and the continued judicial harassment against Panayote Dimitras, which appear to be solely aimed at silencing him and at obstructing his legitimate human rights work.

The Observatory encourages the Greek authorities to take proactive steps to ensure its timely and effective implementation of the Anti-SLAPP Directive.

The Observatory calls on the Greek authorities to protect human rights defenders from abusive proceedings, and to guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders are able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear of reprisals.

Actions requested:

Please write to the authorities of Greece, urging them to:

1. Guarantee, in all circumstances, the physical integrity and psychological well-being of Panayote Dimitras and all other human rights defenders in Greece;
2. Put an immediate end to all acts of harassment, including at the judicial level, against Panayote Dimitras, as well as against all human rights defenders in Greece;
3. Protect human rights defenders from SLAPPs and other forms of abusive proceedings in retaliation for their human rights work.

Addresses:

• Prime Minister of Greece, Mr Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Email: mail@primeminister.gr ; X : @kmitsotakis / @PrimeministerGR
• Minister of Justice, Mr Georgios Floridis, Email: grammateia@justice.gov.gr ; X: @georgefloridis
• General Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Mr Panos Alexandris, Email: gensecretary@justice.gov.gr
• Ministrer of Foreign Affairs, Mr George Gerapetritis, Email: dgypex@mfa.gr ; X: @GreeceMFA
• Grec National Comission for Human Rights, Ms Maria Gavouneli, Email: info@nchr.gr ; X: @humanrights_gr / @MariaGavouneli
• Ambassador of Greece, H.E. Ekaterini Simopoulou, Embassy of Greece in Bern, Switzerland, Email: gremb.brn@mfa.gr
• Permanent Representative of Greece, Mr Ioannis Ghikas, Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Email: grdel.gva@mfa.gr ; X: @GreeceInGeneva
• Ambassador of Greece, H.E. Sofia Grammata, Embassy of Greece in Brussels, Belgium, Email: gremb.bru@mfa.gr
• Permanent Representative of Greece, Mr Ioannis Vrailas, Permanent Representation to the European Union (EU), Email: mea.bruxelles@rp-greece.be ; X: @vrailas

Please also write to the diplomatic missions or embassies of Greece in your respective country.

***

Brussels, 26 February 2026

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and FIDH. The objective of this programme is to intervene to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights defenders. OMCT and FIDH are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented by international civil society.

To contact the Observatory, call the emergency line:

E-mail: alert@observatoryfordefenders.org

Tel OMCT + 41 22 809 49 39

Tel FIDH + 33 1 43 55 25 18