Author Triantafyllou to go on trial over racism claims

Author Soti Triantafyllou is to stand trial this summer after she was accused of using racist language in an article.

Triantafyllou included a quote in her piece, which she attributed to Marco Polo, that described a moderate Muslim as “someone who holds your head while they cut it off.”

This triggered a lawsuit under Greece’s anti-racism laws from human rights activist Panayote Dimitras, who heads the Greek Helsinki Monitor and is in charge of the Racist Crimes Watch blog.

In his suit, Dimitras claims that Triantafyllou could have confirmed just by searching on the internet that the quote is fake and was never uttered by Marco Polo.

Triantafyllou blamed her accuser for taking her words out of context and said that her case highlighted the failings of the anti-racism legislation passed in 2015.

“My positions on the violence that stems from Islam are different from my positions on migrants,” she wrote in brief comment on the Liberal.gr news website.

“I am against anything extreme, whether it comes from extreme Islam or elsewhere.

“This gentleman took one excerpt that nobody knew about and ignored everything else.”

The trial is due to take place in Athens on July 21.