Heavy reactions have been prompted by offensive homophobic comments transmitted during the radio show of Wednesday 5 March on Alpha Radio (Athens, Greece) by journalists Dimos Verykios and Dimitris Stavropoulos. They commented a statement by writer Avgoustos Korto, where he said that he is not going to be a candidate in the upcoming elections, reminding that he remains "devoted to his man and his books". It was announced that Verykios will be judged by the Journalists' Union, and he later posted an apology.

As an article by Maria Louka in the Greek version of the Vice magazine noticed, "the two journalists focused for an entire quarter of an hour to the sexual orientation of the writer, using expressions originating from imfamous districts in old movies, such as "He needed a finger", "pretentious fagot", "Ms Augoustine". They had distributed the roles of the discussion, as Dimos Verykios played the macho, heavy and traditional man that "speaks the whole truth" and Dimitris Stavropoulos made obviously ironic suggestions, that "the expressions used are not proper", while kept reminding that he is not gay himself. In the end, they both concluded that "we are living in a dictatorship made by gays".

Reactions by listeners

The recording was soon uploaded to the Youtube, along with the request to file a complaint at the National Council for Radio and TV for offense against one's personality. The same time, Twitter users (using hashtag #verikios [4]) expressed their disgust for the on air sayings of the two radio producers: "I tried to listen to the delirium of Verykios but I cannot stand longer than 2 minutes. He is an absolutely disgusting human". "A pretentious fagot is the one that has a soul full of shit, not the one that gets aroused by men -this one is gay." , "Greece 2014: a society that does not accept gays, but mainly does not respect the personal choice of people. SHAME".

Iasson Doussis, co-founder of the group "PoustiRiot" and member of the Colour Youth (Youth LGBTQ community of Athens) stated to Anna Koroupou (protagon.gr): “The shameless statement by Dimos Verykios against Avgoustos Kortó, a courageous artist and activist such, indicate blatantly the misery of a part of the Greek society concerning basic human rights, including homosexual rights, which are infringed on a regular basis by the Greek state and its homophobic and transphobic citizens. It has already been quite clear that the low level of the Greece society is demonstrated by the way they treat LGBTQ people and their rights; and we are all asked to decide whether we want to live in a place that respects people and helps them to develop. The National Council for Radio and TV is obliged to intervene against Verykios' homophobic delirium and apply the proper penalties. Contrary to their recent decisions, when with no sensible argument, banned homosexual kisses on TV”

Response by the artist and apology by the journalist

The victim of the comments reacted in a restrained way, writing on Facebook “Yesterday, among the entire kindness towards me, I received several speeches of anger and ugliness, which freaked out when a man referred to his “man” and pinned a few samples of their civilized ways on me. But they did not discourage me at all. Whoever fights and hates love, and somebody else's love indeed, has already lost the game of life”.

A few hours after a complaint towards the Journalists Union was filed, Verykios declared an apology: “I officially declare, given all legal consequences, that I am NOT homophobic, neither do I share opinions and stances by homophobes. I officially declare that I am not against homosexuals and their organizations. I declare officially that my radio comment for Augustinos Koustó, whom I know only via his scripts, did not aim to intimidate him as a person or as a gay. It was only done due to the referral of his name in politics and as can only be accepted as part of the political prose that we have been doing every morning on the radio, for the last 15 years. A prose, which had offended nobody so far... I am sincerely sorry for this misunderstanding. I sincerely apologize to every famous, anonymous, declared or hidden homosexual. I had no intension to make fun or intimidate anybody, neither Augustos Kortó, of course.[...]”

Πηγές: Vice,  Candia News, Twitter, Facebook, Protagon.gr