Today the Greek minister of migration and Asylum, Notis Mitarachi, once again tried to manipulate the truth on Twitter, not very successfully but nevertheless he tried. It’s not the first time he has blatantly lied and published fake news on social media, but this time his efforts wasn’t very successful, at least if you are looking for the truth.
He published a 3 year old video that he had snatched from YouTube, claiming it to be prof of Turkish pushing people towards Greece. He forgot to mention how old the video was, and where he got the video from.
His twitter post has gotten huge response, all the maggots is crawling out of the woodwork to feed, it’s actually quite fascinating to see how people just forgets to use their brains.
The original video was posted several places online, this one from YouTube on September 8, 2019.
The case is originally from September 5, on the coast of Madra Çayi, where a boat carrying 46 people, 35 Syrians and 11 Palestinians, tried to cross from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesvos.
In 2019 Turkey had a deal with EU, to stop anyone from crossing the border from Turkey into the EU, the so called EU-Turkey deal. Turkey was basically paid billions of Euros to keep anyone from crossing the border, and they did, many times violently, as documented by Aegean Boat Report in this period.
This particular case was criticized on social media in such an extent that the Turkish authorities found it necessary to put out a press statement, claiming that they did not do what appears to be the case in the video.
The case also found its way to Turkish press, it ended up being a rather profiled incident.
I don’t know what kind of people are advising the minister, or if this was purely done by him himself, but this is a blunder that seems to show that someone is getting quite desperate.
In his post on Twitter today he claimed that the boat was pushed towards Greece while in fact it was actually stopped by Turkish authorities. But it didn’t stop there, he even tried to play the hero card, by saying the people was saved by Greece, they were not, all 46 was in fact taken back to Dikili, Turkey.
How could he have been so stupid, when trying to push fake news, to use a video from a very well known case that is obviously not even close to showing what he claims. Stupidity comes in all shapes and sizes, some of them even looks like people..
This case was quickly picked up by mainstream press in Greece, and the ministers fake news is reproduced in government friendly press all over the country. Perhaps that was his intention, because anything negative on Turkey is spread like wildfire, true or not do not matter, as long as it feeds the narrative of the Greek authorities. I wonder if his blunder will get the same attention in the press, I doubt it, because government friendly Greek press is actually paid handsomely to publish anything that comes from the government.
It’s interesting to not, that when videos filmed by refugees showing Turkish coast guard doing something illegal, it’s according to Mitarachi proof. When refugees film Greek coast guards doing something wrong it’s fake news and Turkish propaganda. How does that make any sense?
One thing that was quite fascinating, besides the obvious fake news, was the way he wrote it. First he say Turkey is “pushing forward migrants to Greece”, then when they were heroically saved by Greece they are suddenly refugees. So when talking about Turkey he uses the negative word “migrants”, but when talking about Greece he uses the more positive word “refugees”, how fascinating.
Once again Notis Mitarachi has made himself looking like a fool. How it’s possible to be so stupid, and at the same time be a minister in the Greek government, is actually quite worrying. One should think that people holding high positions in government, should have more flow in the attic than is shown her.