When a government seizes control of the airwaves and TVs around the country go black, it usually spells trouble. Throw in a resolute group of broadcasters who refuse to be sacked and the scene is set for a seemingly inevitable confrontation. That's exactly what happened when the Greek Government pulled the plug on public broadcaster ERT. Amos Roberts spent time with the squatters as they put out their pirate news service and waited anxiously for what would happen next.
REPORTER: Amos Roberts
Five months ago, Greece lost one of its most treasured icons and no-one saw it coming.
NEWSREADER (Translation): Ladies and Gentlemen, Hello. Rapid developments are happening at ERT.
The drama unfolded on June 11. Staff at the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation or ERT, gathered to watch a pre-recorded announcement by government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou.
SIMOS KEDIKOGLOU (Translation): When the Greek people have to make sacrifices, there are no margins for delays or hesitation. There is no margin for tolerance of sacred cows that remain untouched when cuts are imposed everywhere else.
NEWS PRODUCER (Translation): You mother fucker.
The government accused ERT of being wasteful, extravagant, inefficient and unpopular.
SIMOS KEDIKOGLOU (Translation): All that stops today. It definitely stops. The government has decided to cease operations of ERT.
Shocked and outraged, crowds of people flocked to ERT headquarters in northern Athens. ERT covered its own demise live.
NEWSREADER (Translation): As time goes by, more and more people are arriving and I must tell you, traffic in Mesogeion Avenue is almost at a stand-still. It's full of cars with families coming here to join in solidarity with those working in ERT.
MARILENA KATSIMI: It's one of the greatest days of my life because I saw the reaction of the people and I could not believe it. They could not stand that the public television would close after 75 years in such a manner. I mean, it was really like a dictatorship.
Just before midnight and without any warning, a studio guest was cut-off mid sentence. After more than 70 years on air, the government had pulled the plug. For the ERT Orchestra, rehearsing for its final public concert, the loss was overwhelming. Three television channels, more than two dozen radio stations, a choir and two orchestras had been axed, along with the 2,600 staff who worked there. That number is significant. The government had been under enormous pressure from Greece's lenders - the so-called Troika - to reform the public sector by cutting 2,000 jobs.
VASSILIKI MORALI, FORMER ERT BROADCASTER: Troika had demanded a sacrifice and the government considered ERT as the perfect victim so everyone could just shut up and accept that.
But the government failed to anticipate the wave of support for ERT after the shutdown. In the days that followed, ERT resumed broadcasts via satellite with help from the European Broadcasting Union and protests outside the studios triggered a political crisis with one of three coalition parties withdrawing from the government. The staff decided to stay put. Almost five months later, they're still here, defying the government. Some 200 journalists, technicians and administrators producing daily programs for radio and television online.
REPORTER: Why are you still here almost five months later?
MARILENA KATSIMI: We're here because they have really raped us. They raped our values. They raped our personalities. They raped our rights. Everything. If we leave, it's like we legitimise them.
When breakfast show presenter Marilena Katsimi arrives for work, she finds her colleagues have spent the night here.
REPORTER: You've been sleeping here?
There were rumours last night that police would evict them.
REPORTER: Were you also sleeping here last night? Of course. It's just what you do.
MARILENA KATSIMI: Actually, we are waiting for the police to come. Four months now.
MAN: Guys, we came the wrong way, I'm sorry - it's blocked here.
REPORTER: This is a blockade for the police.
MARILENA KATSIMI: I didn't know.
MAN: Yes, yes you see. Here, you see. Usually we used to go this way but now we have to go a floor down and walk the other way so we can reach the studios.
REPORTER: At least the police won't get up here.
MAN: Because we have many entrances here, so we don't know where they are going to came from so, we're trying to be safe. Off to work we go.
Nobody working here gets paid anymore. ERT is self-managing and staffed with volunteers. Unfortunately, this amazing work ethic has come too late.
REPORTER: Was ERT overstaffed?
VASSILIKI MORALI: Yes. Certainly.
Vassiliki Morali runs the Greek radio program at SBS in Sydney but worked at ERT for almost 30 years. She said it was plagued by cronyism because government appointed most of the people working there.
VASSILIKI MORALI: Including myself.
REPORTER: You were also a political appointment?
VASSILIKI MORALI: Yes. Because at the time I went to ERT in 1982 and there were no other ways to be there apart from being appointed by the government.
Morali blames ERT's many failings on too much government interference on the one hand and staff resistance to reform on the other.
VASSILIKI MORALI: Usually we used to work about four or five people out of 10. I mean, really working.
REPORTER: What were the others doing?
VASSILIKI MORALI: Wandering around or pretending that they were working. For years, yes.
REPORTER: Tell me how you felt as a former journalist yourself when your government announced that it was shutting down the public broadcaster?
PANTELIS KAPSIS, DEPUTY MINISTER FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING: Well, it wasn't a decision that I would agree with. On the other hand, you couldn't reform easily the old ERT. You had to start from scratch.
It's hard to start from scratch when there are ERT workers who refuse to leave.
MARILENA KATSIMI: So this is our studio. One of the best, maybe the best in Greece. Isn't it?
REPORTER: Now it's being illegally occupied.
MARILENA KATSIMI: Legally. Legally.
But in August many of ERT's workers found a new employer, just a few kilometres down the road. Welcome to the makeshift home of Greece's new interim public broadcaster, DT.
REPORTER: Is this different to your old dressing room?
PROKOPIS DUKAS: Yeah. This is sort of a bit like camping.
Prokopis Doukas, who presents the evening news bulletin here, says they're ham strung by a lack of resources thanks to the squatters down the road. DT was only rushed to air after a court ruled that Greece had to have a working public broadcaster.
PROKOPIS DUKAS: We don't have enough rooms, we don't have enough technicians, we don't have enough PCs, we don't have enough space.
REPORTER: You need the facility back.
PROKOPIS DUKAS: Yes. But nobody wants to give them back.
Doukas condemns the closure of ERT but he's clearly frustrated that his former colleagues are still there.
PROKOPIS DUKAS: Actually they're not accepting the wrong decision made by the democratic government. Even if some parts of this decision were illegal and this is going to be judged in court - the fact that it is illegal cannot be decided by some people fighting inside the building. Actually, the building and the infrastructure ERT belong to the Greek people, they do not belong to the employees.
Political divisions in Greece are now mirrored in this bizarre split between rival public broadcasters. Government politicians boycott programs on ERT, while the opposition won't appear on DT.
REPORTER: The interim public broadcaster has panels from the government and ERT has panels from the left wing parties. It's a pretty crazy situation in Greece.
MARILENA KATSIMI: Yes. You're right.
On one level, workers here know their struggle is doomed but they're strangely optimistic.
REPORTER: You're doing all of this?
WOMAN: Yes. The magic finger.
The women controlling the boom gates used to play viola and flute in the ERT orchestra. They're here unpaid, every day.
WOMAN: I'm not afraid to support my rights. Yes, I feel it. I feel very good about it.
And these security guards used to be sound engineers.
MAN: I'm every night here.
REPORTER: Every night?
MAN: Yep. It's fun. It's like a small village that we care so much about. We are not so many as we were but we'll continue. We feel great. You can see most people here have a bright light inside, I can say, they smile. I don't think many people today all over the country can smile. We smile because we fight for the right, that we feel.
There's a lot of talk of axioprepeia, or dignity. At a time when material wealth and even a social safety net have proved elusive, dignity is an end in itself.
REPORTER: How do you feel about the fact they're still there after almost five months?
PROKOPIS DUKAS: I think they're harming their own interests and they're harming the case of a public broadcaster in Greece.
REPORTER: Can we expect to see the police anytime soon evicting the workers?
PROKOPIS DUKAS: That is not something that's my responsibility. I cannot say anything about it.
Anxious for answers, union representatives have just met with the deputy minister.
UNION LEADER (Translation): There's no talk of riot police. But I wish they would come.
WOMAN (Translation): It's good for us.
Talks have reached a dead end.
NIKOS TSIMPIDAS: He sits like this, he put his hands here, and he says the only thing, the best thing you can do is to get out of Broadcasting House and what you're telling me, you've already told me before - get out.
REPORTER: Are you prepared for that, for the fact you may be arrested?
MARILENA KATSIMI: Yes. Of course.
Before dawn on November 7, riot police massed outside ERT and sealed off the studios. The end came swiftly.
NIKOS TSIMPIDAS (Translation): Yes, we are being evicted. I hear that the order for me to stop talking.
On air was Nikos Tsimpidas, who I'd filmed the week before. This was the last broadcast from the ERT studios.
NIKOS TSIMPIDAS (Translation): Dear listeners, we are closing down now. Greek broadcasting falls silent. The microphones are being turned off.
There were no arrests. After all the suspense, the end came as an anti-climax. The government says a new permanent broadcaster will be up and running early next year.
REPORTER: And what sort of public broadcaster would you like to see in the future and how will it be different?
PANTELIS KAPSIS: I said my dream is the director of news of the public broadcaster, the director of news feels free to hang down the phone. That's my idea.
For more than 70 years, ERT reflected both the best and worst of Greek society.
VASSILIKI MORALI: ERT was a significant part of every family, every single family in Greece for many decades.
Few have faith in the government's promise of a stronger, more independent public broadcaster. But in these times of social and economic turmoil, surely it's needed more than ever.
PROKOPIS DUKAS: A public radio and television broadcaster is not something that belongs to the government. It belongs to the people. It's public. We have the obligation to build up a new ERT because it belongs to the people. It's necessary for the society and necessary for Greece's existence.
ANJALI RAO: What sort of public broadcaster will emerge? That's the $64,000 question. There's an interview with Amos online on what could happen in the world' Greek broadcasting.
Reporter/Camera
AMOS ROBERTS
Producer
GARRY MCNAB
Editor
MICAH MCGOWN
Fixer
HARIS NIKOLAKAKIS
Additional Camera
LAZLO MIZFAK
Translations/Subtitling
GEORGE POULARAS
Original Music Composed by
VICKI HANSEN