title: Cinema Paradiso

text: In the 173-minute version of the film, after the funeral, Salvatore notices an adolescent girl who resembles the teenage Elena. He follows the teen as she rides her scooter to her home, which allows Salvatore to contact his long-lost love Elena, who is revealed to be the girl's mother. Salvatore calls her in hopes of rekindling their romance; she initially rejects him, but later reconsiders and goes to see Salvatore, who was contemplating his rejection at a favorite location from their early years. Their meeting ultimately leads to a lovemaking session in her car. He learns that she had married an acquaintance from his school years, who became a local politician of modest means. Afterwards, feeling cheated, he strives to rekindle their romance, and while she clearly wishes it were possible, she rejects his entreaties, choosing to remain with her family and leave their romance in the past.


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: During their evening together, a frustrated Salvatore asks Elena why she never contacted him or left word of where her family was moving to. He learns that the reason they lost touch was because Alfredo asked her not to see him again, fearing that Salvatore's romantic fulfillment would only destroy what Alfredo sees as Salvatore's destiny – to be successful in the cinema world. Alfredo tried to convince her that if she loved Salvatore, she should leave him for his own good. Elena explains to Salvatore that, against Alfredo's instruction, she had secretly left a note with an address where she could be reached and a promise of undying love and loyalty. Salvatore realizes that he never found that note, and thus lost his true love for more than thirty years. The next morning, Salvatore returns to the decaying Cinema Paradiso and frantically searches through the piles of old film invoices pinned to the wall of the projection booth. There, on the reverse side of one of the dockets, he finds the handwritten note Elena had left thirty years earlier.


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: The film ends with Salvatore returning to Rome and, with teary eyes, viewing the film reel that Alfredo left.


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: A special edition of "Cinema Paradiso" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in September 2006. The DVD is compatible with all region codes and includes special features such as the theatrical trailer, the Director's Cut version, scenes from the Director's Cut, the Ennio Morricone soundtrack and a documentary on Giuseppe Tornatore.


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: An Academy Award edition of "Cinema Paradiso" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in February 2009. It is also compatible with all region codes and includes different special features such as Umbrella Entertainment trailers, cast and crew biographies and the Director's filmography.


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: In July 2011, Umbrella Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray. Arrow released a remastered special edition Blu-ray of the film, with both theatrical and extended cuts, in 2017.


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: In June 2020, Arrow Films announced a 4K UHD Blu-ray release with both of the aforementioned cuts due for September of that year, although only the 124-minute theatrical cut will be a 4K UHD presentation, the 174-minute Director’s Cut will be included as a Blu-ray presentation only.


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: "Cinema Paradiso" was a critical and box-office success, making Tornatore internationally known, and is regarded by many as a classic. It is particularly renowned for the 'kissing scenes' montage at the film's end. Winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1989, the film is often credited with reviving Italy's film industry, which later produced "Mediterraneo" and "Life Is Beautiful". Film critic Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars out of four and four stars out of four for the extended version, declaring "Still, I'm happy to have seen it--not as an alternate version, but as the ultimate exercise in viewing deleted scenes." Oddly, despite giving a higher rating to the extended version, Ebert maintained that the theatrical version was superior: "I must confess that the shorter version of Cinema Paradiso is a better film than the longer."


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 90% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 80 reviews, with an average score of 8.00/10. The critics consensus reads, ""Cinema Paradiso" is a life-affirming ode to the power of youth, nostalgia, and the the movies themselves." The film also holds a score of 80 based on 21 reviews on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film was ranked #27 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. The famed "kissing scene" montage at the end of the film was used in "Stealing First Base", an episode of "The Simpsons" that aired on 21 March 2010, during its twenty-first season. The scene used Morricone's "Love Theme" and included animated clips of famous movie kisses, including scenes used in "Cinema Paradiso" as well as contemporary films not shown in the original film. American progressive metal band Dream Theater 1992 album "Images and Words"<nowiki>'</nowiki> song "Take the Time" features in the lyrics the sentence spoken by Alfredo after the fire, ""ora che ho perso la vista, ci vedo di più"! (I can see much clearer now I'm blind)".


title: Cinema Paradiso

text: The film was released twice in Italy before its Cannes win and flopped at the box office both times. After the Cannes win it was re-released and performed steadily however, following its Academy Award success, it was released again and performed better, grossing $5.3 million in Italy. In France, the film ran for over a year, grossing over $19 million. In the United States and Canada, it grossed $12.3 million.


title: Gumby

text: Gumby is an American clay animation franchise, centered on the titular green clay humanoid character created and modeled by Art Clokey. Gumby stars in two television series, the feature-length "", and other media. He immediately became a famous example of stop motion clay animation and an American cultural icon, spawning tributes, parodies, and merchandising.


title: Gumby

text: The "Gumby" franchise follows Gumby's adventures through different environments and historical eras. His primary sidekick is Pokey, a talking orange pony. His nemeses are the G and J Blockheads, a pair of antagonistic red humanoid figures with cube-shaped heads, one with the letter G on the block, the other with the letter J. Their creation was inspired by the trouble-making Katzenjammer Kids. Other characters include Prickle, a yellow fire-breathing dinosaur who sometimes styles himself as a detective with pipe and deerstalker hat like Sherlock Holmes; Goo, a flying blue shapeshifting mermaid who spits blue goo balls; Gumbo and Gumba, Gumby's parents; and Nopey, Gumby's dog whose entire vocabulary is the word "nope". The 1988 syndicated series added Gumby's sister Minga, mastodon friend Denali, and chicken friend Tilly.


title: Gumby

text: Gumby was created by Art Clokey in the early 1950s after he finished film school at the University of Southern California (USC).


title: Gumby

text: Clokey's first animated film was a 1953 three-minute student film called "Gumbasia", a surreal montage of moving and expanding lumps of clay set to music in a parody of Disney's "Fantasia". "Gumbasia" was created in the "kinesthetic" style taught by Clokey's USC professor Slavko Vorkapić, described as "massaging of the eye cells". Much of Gumby's look and feel was inspired by this technique of camera movements and editing.


title: Gumby

text: In 1955, Clokey showed "Gumbasia" to film producer Sam Engel, who encouraged him to develop his technique by animating figures into children's stories. Clokey produced a pilot episode starring Gumby.


title: Gumby

text: The name "Gumby" came from the muddy clay found at Clokey's grandparents' farm that his family called "gumbo". Gumby's appearance was inspired by a suggestion from his wife, Ruth (née Parkander), that Gumby be based on the Gingerbread Man. Clokey saw the color green as both racially neutral and a symbol of life. Gumby's legs and feet were made wide to pragmatically ensure that the figure would stand up during stop motion filming. Gumby's slanted head was based on the hairstyle of Clokey's father, Charles Farrington, in an old photograph.


title: Gumby

text: The pilot episode was seen by NBC executive Thomas Warren Sarnoff (the youngest son of RCA and NBC founder, David Sarnoff), who asked Clokey to make another one. The second episode, "Gumby on the Moon", became a huge hit on "Howdy Doody", so Sarnoff ordered a series in 1955 titled "The Gumby Show". In 1955 and 1956, 25 episodes at 11 minutes each aired on NBC. In early episodes, Gumby's voice was provided by Ruth Eggleston, wife of the show's art director Al Eggleston, until Dallas McKennon assumed the role in 1957. Gumby's best friend, an orange pony named Pokey, was introduced during the earliest episodes. Because of its variety format, "The Gumby Show" features Clokey's animations plus interviews and games. During this time, the show had two successive hosts, Robert Nicholson and Pinky Lee.


title: Gumby

text: In 1959, "The Gumby Show" entered syndication, and more episodes were produced in the 1960s. Production started in Hollywood and in 1960 moved to a larger studio in Glendora, California, where it remained until production ended in 1969. During this time, Gumby was primarily voiced by Norma MacMillan, and occasionally by Ginny Tyler. The cartoon shorts introduce new characters including a blue mermaid named Goo and a yellow dinosaur named Prickle.


title: Gumby

text: Beginning in 1982, Gumby was parodied by Eddie Murphy on "Saturday Night Live". In it, when the cameras are off, the sweet Gumby reverts to his true self of an irascible, cigar-chomping celebrity who is highly demanding of the production executives. Whenever they refuse his demands, Gumby asserts his star status by saying "I'm "Gumby", dammit!" in an exaggerated Jewish accent. According to Joseph Clokey, Art's son, he and Art "thought Eddie was a genius in the way he played that character". In 1987, the original "Gumby" shorts were released on home video. In 1988, Gumby appeared in "The Puppetoon Movie".


title: Gumby

text: This renewed interest led to a new series of 99 episodes of 7-minutes, produced for television syndication in association with Lorimar-Telepictures in 1988. Dallas McKennon voices Gumby in the new adventures, in which Gumby and his pals travels beyond their toyland setting as a musical band. "Gumby Adventures" includes new characters, such as Gumby's little sister Minga, a mastodon named Denali and a chicken named Tilly.


title: Gumby

text: The new series includes the 1950s and 1960s shorts, with new audio. The voices were re-recorded and the music was replaced by Jerry Gerber's new synthesizer score. Legal issues prevented Clokey from renewing rights to the original Capitol Records production tracks.


title: Gumby

text: Starting in 1992, TV channels such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network aired reruns of "Gumby" episodes. In 1995, Clokey's production company produced an independently released theatrical film, "", as the character's first feature-length adventure, with John R. Dilworth, creator of "Courage the Cowardly Dog", as animation consultant. In it, the villainous Blockheads replace Gumby and his band with robots and kidnap their dog, Lowbelly. It has in-joke homages to science-fiction films such as "Star Wars", "The Terminator", and "". In 1998, the "Gumby" episode "Robot Rumpus" was featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000".


title: Gumby

text: On March 16, 2007, YouTube announced that all "Gumby" episodes would appear in their full-length form on its site, digitally remastered and with their original soundtracks. This deal also extended to other video sites, including AOL. In March 2007, KQED-TV broadcast an hour-long documentary "Gumby Dharma" in its "Truly CA" series. It details Clokey's life and work, and has new animation of Gumby and Pokey. For these sequences, animator Stephen A. Buckley voiced Gumby and Clokey voiced Pokey.


title: Gumby

text: In February 2022, Fox Entertainment, the TV production division of the Murdoch family's Fox Corporation, announced it had acquired the "Gumby" intellectual property from the estate of Art's son, Joseph Clokey, encompassing all rights including "film, TV and streaming, consumer products, licensing, publishing and all other categories", with plans to launch new series across linear and digital platforms, while adding to the classic "Gumby" material available on its free streaming platform Tubi.


title: Gumby

text: Several sources say that Dick Beals voiced Gumby in the 1960s; however, Beals denied this claim in a 2001 interview.


title: Gumby

text: In 1993, "TV Guide" named "Gumby" the best cartoon series of the 1950s in its issue celebrating 40 years of television.


title: Gumby

text: Beginning in 1994, the Library of Congress used Gumby as a "spokescharacter" for "Adventures into Books: Gumby's World", a traveling exhibition promoting the Center for the Book's national reading campaign from 1997 to 2000. By the end of the 1990s, Gumby and Pokey had also appeared in various commercials for Cheerios cereal.


title: Gumby

text: On August 4, 2006, the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta opened "Art Clokey's Gumby: The First Fifty Years". This exhibition featured many of the original puppets and sets, along with screening of Clokey's films. This event was conceived by David Scheve of T.D.A. Animation and Joe Clokey of Premavision, and was one of several exhibits that opened around the country, celebrating the 50th anniversary of "The Gumby Show". The children's book "Gumby Goes to the Sun" was also published that year to commemorate the anniversary. The book was originally created in the 1980s by Clokey's daughter, Holly Harman (who voiced Gumby's sister, Minga in the 1988 series).


title: Gumby

text: In 2007, the "Gumby" comic book series was nominated for two Eisner Awards, Best New Series and Best Publication for a Young Audience, and won the latter.


title: Gumby

text: On October 12, 2011, a Google Doodle acknowledged Art Clokey's 90th birthday. It was composed of a toy block with a "G" and five clay balls in the Google colors. Clicking each ball revealed the Blockheads, Prickle, Goo, Gumby, and Pokey.


title: Gumby

text: On December 21, 2019, Eddie Murphy reprised his role while hosting SNL during a skit on Weekend Update.


title: Gumby

text: The most prominent of Gumby merchandise is the bendable figure set by Lakeside Toys. Several single packs and multi-figure sets were made by Jesco (later Trendmasters), and a 50th anniversary collection. There are plush dolls, keychains, mugs, a 1988 Colorforms set, a 1995 Trendmasters playset, and a Kubricks set by Medicom. A tribute album, "Gumby: The Green Album", produced by Shepard Stern, was released in 1989.


title: Gumby

text: In August 2005, the first video game featuring Gumby, "Gumby vs. the Astrobots", was released by Namco for the Game Boy Advance. Gumby must rescue Pokey, Prickle, and Goo after they are captured by the Blockheads and their cohorts, the Astrobots.


title: Gumby

text: The "Gumby" images and toys are registered trademarks of Prema Toy Company. Premavision owned the distribution rights to the "Gumby" cartoons, having been reverted from previous distributor Warner Bros. Television in 2003, and had licensed the rights to Classic Media until September 30, 2012. At this time, Classic Media was officially acquired by DreamWorks Animation and branded as DreamWorks Classics, which became a subsidiary of NBCUniversal in 2016. As of April 2015, NCircle Entertainment owns home video and digital distribution rights to the cartoons.


title: Virginity test

text: A virginity test is the practice and process of determining whether a girl or woman is a virgin; i.e., to determine that she has never engaged in, or been subjected to, sexual intercourse. The test typically involves a check for the presence of an intact hymen, typically on the flawed assumption that it can only be torn as a result of sexual intercourse. It has been practiced since ancient times but its recent use in the United Kingdom dates back to 1970s. It is still legal for doctors in the United States to perform virginity tests.


title: Virginity test

text: Virginity testing is widely considered controversial, because of its implications for the tested girls and women, because it is viewed as unethical, and because a number of such tests are widely considered to be unscientific. In cases of suspected rape or child sexual abuse, a detailed examination of the hymen may be performed, but the condition of the hymen alone is often inconclusive.


title: Virginity test

text: In October 2018, the UN Human Rights, UN Women and the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that virginity testing must end as it is a painful, humiliating and traumatic practice, constituting violence against women.


title: Virginity test

text: The process of virginity testing varies by region. In areas where medical doctors are available, the tests would often be given in a doctor's office. However, in countries where doctors are not available, testers will often be older women, or whoever can be trusted to search for a hymen. This is common among African tribes that perform the test.


title: Virginity test

text: Another form of virginity testing involves testing for laxity of vaginal muscles with fingers (the "two-finger test"). A doctor performs the test by inserting a finger into the female's vagina to check the level of vaginal laxity, which is used to determine if she is "habituated to sexual intercourse". However, the usefulness of these criteria has been questioned by medical authorities and opponents of virginity testing because vaginal laxity and the absence of a hymen can both be caused by other factors, and the "two-finger test" is based on subjective observation.


title: Virginity test

text: Examinations to test for previous sexual activity used to be performed on rape victims in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India before it was banned.


title: Virginity test

text: Among the Bantu peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa, virginity testing or even the suturing of the labia majora (called infibulation) has been commonplace. Traditionally, Kenuzi girls (of the Sudan) are married before puberty by adult men who inspect them manually for virginity.


title: Virginity test

text: Virginity testing drives unequal social pressures for women and girls to remain virgins until they marry. These attitudes create a framework for men to assume control over female sexual behaviors, and has led to women's punishment, and even death. These discriminatory attitudes have led to violence against women. Virginity testing perpetuates these harmful stereotyped beliefs through the discriminatory framework that women are primarily responsible for all sexual activity and misconduct.


title: Virginity test

text: In Iran, sixteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants aged 32 to 60 years to elucidate the perceptions and experiences of Iranian examiners of virginity testing. The perception and experience of examiners were reflected in five main themes. The result of this study indicated that virginity testing is more than a medical examination, considering the cultural factors involved and its overt and covert consequences. In Iran, testing is performed for both formal and informal reasons, and examiners view such testing with ambiguity about the accuracy and certainty of the diagnosis and uncertainty about ethics and reproductive rights. Examiners are affected by the overt and covert consequences of virginity testing, beliefs and cultural values underlying virginity testing, and informal and formal reasons for virginity testing also used to examine sexual offence.


title: Virginity test

text: Many cultures require proof of a bride's virginity prior to her marriage. This has traditionally been tested by the presence of an intact hymen, which was verified by either a physical examination (usually by a physician), who would provide a certificate of virginity or by a "proof of blood", which refers to vaginal bleeding that results from the tearing of the hymen. The physical examination would normally be undertaken before the marriage ceremony, while the "proof by blood" involves an inspection for signs of bleeding as part of the consummation of marriage, after the ceremony.


title: Virginity test

text: Egypt's military forces performed virginity tests on women detained during the 2011 Egyptian revolution. After Amnesty International protested to the Egyptian government in March 2011, the government claimed the tests were carried out in order to refute claims that the women had been raped while in detention. Amnesty International described the virginity tests as "nothing less than torture". Virginity tests done by the military on detainees were banned in Egypt on 27 December 2011, but in March 2012, the physician who carried out the tests was acquitted of all charges. Samira Ibrahim, the Egyptian woman who filed the lawsuit against the government that initiated public discussion of their use of virginity testing, said in response to the physician's acquittal: "A woman's body should not be used as a tool for intimidation, and nobody should have their dignity violated."


title: Virginity test

text: Prior to the 1980s, virginity testing was also used on women entering the United Kingdom on what was popularly called a fiancée visa, when they said they were immigrating to marry their fiancées who were already living in the country. The British government argued that if the women were virgins, they were more likely to be telling the truth about their reason for immigrating to the country. In January 1979, a woman was required by British immigration officers to undergo a virginity test when she arrived in London claiming that she was there to marry. Such a visit did not require a visa, but as proof of her "bona fides", she was required to submit to the test. This practice was exposed by "The Guardian" in 1979 and the policy was quickly changed.


title: Virginity test

text: Virginity testing in Indonesia for female applicants to the military and police has been practiced since 1965 and is carried out during medical examinations. An announcement was made in August 2013 in Prabumulih district, South Sumatra, Indonesia, by local education chief Muhammad Rasyid, that teenage girls attending high school there would be given mandatory annual virginity tests, beginning in 2014. The stated intent was to reduce promiscuity in the district. In 2014 the Human Rights Watch reported that a physical virginity test is routinely performed on female candidates to the Indonesian National Police as part of the job application process.<br>In August 2021, the Indonesian Army Chief of Staff General Andika Perkasa officially announced that the army will no longer conduct virginity testing for female recruits. The navy and air force had already stopped conducting virginity tests.


title: Virginity test

text: In Iran, Atena Farghadani was charged with "illicit sexual relations falling short of adultery" for shaking hands with her lawyer in June 2015. She complained that Iranian prison officials and guards have made lewd gestures, sexual slurs and other insults to her, and went on a three-day "dry" hunger strike in September 2015 in protest of this ill-treatment. However, the harassment continued. In a note written by Farghadani leaked from prison, which has been seen by Amnesty International, Farghadani says the judicial authorities took her to a medical center outside the prison on 12 August 2015 and forced her to submit to a virginity test, purportedly for the purpose of investigating the charge against her.


title: Virginity test

text: In India's Kanjarbhat community, after a marriage ceremony takes place, a virginity test is carried out on the newly-married wife using a white bed sheet. If the woman bleeds following intercourse with her new husband, it is declared that 'Maal khara hai' (the goods are pure) and if she does not bleed, the council will declare that 'Maal khota hai' (the goods are spoiled). In 2019, the Maharashtra state government announced that it intended to make virginity tests for brides a punishable offence, describing the practice as form of sexual assault.


title: Virginity test

text: Virginity tests are common in Afghanistan. Some women undergo multiple tests. The tests are often done without the woman's consent. They have drawn widespread condemnation, with critics saying they are inhumane and hurt the dignity of women.


title: Virginity test

text: Many researchers state that a broken hymen is not a reliable indicator that a female has been vaginally penetrated because the tearing of the hymen may have been the result of some other event. Furthermore, in rare cases, some girls are born without hymens.


title: Virginity test

text: The hymen is a ring of fleshy tissue that sits just inside the vaginal opening. Normal variations range from thin and stretchy to thick and somewhat rigid. The only variation that typically requires medical intervention is the imperforate hymen, which either completely prevents the passage of menstrual fluid or slows it significantly. In either case, surgical intervention may be needed to allow menstrual fluid to pass or intercourse to take place at all. Another variation, the septate hymen (a condition in which a band of tissue divides the vaginal canal in two) may also require medical intervention if it does not resolve naturally through sexual intercourse or other means. It is a misconception that the hymen always tears during first intercourse or that intercourse is required to rupture the hymen.


title: Virginity test

text: A female can undergo a surgical procedure, called hymenorrhaphy or hymenoplasty, to repair or replace a torn hymen, to "pass" a virginity test.


title: Virginity test

text: In May 2013, the Supreme Court of India held that the two-finger test on a rape victim violates her right to privacy, and asked the Delhi government to provide better medical procedures to confirm sexual assault. In 2003, the Supreme Court of India called TFT "hypothetical" and "opinionative". Most countries have scrapped it as archaic, unscientific and invasive of privacy and dignity. Quebec's "Collège des Médecins" has banned members from conducting virginity tests after some were found to be doing this, as well as providing virginity certificates. In 2021 the Lahore High Court banned the use of virginity tests in cases where women claim they were raped. The UK's Royal College of Midwives says that virginity testing is indefensible with no medical benefit. It was criminalised in the UK from 2022, along with hymenorrhaphy and offering or aiding and abetting these procedures, with the Health and Care Act 2022.


title: Virginity test

text: Virginity testing was performed on Indian women as part of the British immigration system in the 1970s, when there was a suspicion that an applicant might be already married. Applicants were expected to be virgins if they were not married.


title: Virginity test

text: Preventing the spread of HIV and teenage pregnancy are examples of reasons given by proponents of virginity testing. In 2004, a Zimbabwean village chief, Naboth Makoni, stated that he would adopt a plan to enforce virginity tests as a way of protecting his people against HIV. He explained that he focuses on girls because he believes they are easier to control than boys. In South Africa, where virginity testing is banned for girls under the age of 16, the Zulu tribe believes that the practice prevents the spread of HIV and teenage pregnancy. A woman interviewed by the "Washington Post" stated that "[Virginity testing] is important so that young girls become scared of boys. Because what happens is first the boy strips you of your virginity, and the next thing you know is you are pregnant and you have HIV."


title: Virginity test

text: In Zulu culture, there is a tradition in which girls of a certain age can perform a dance for the king. However, only virgins are allowed to participate. If a girl is tested and declared a virgin, she brings honor to her family. If a girl is found not to be a virgin, her father may have to pay a fine for "tainting" the community and the girl may be shunned from the "certified" virgins. Because of the ramifications that being considered impure have for the girls and their families, virginity testing has the potential to be a life-changing event.


title: Greek junta

text: The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels was a right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections which Georgios Papandreou's Centre Union was favoured to win. The dictatorship was characterised by right-wing cultural policies, anti-communism, restrictions on civil liberties, and the imprisonment, torture, and exile of political opponents. It was ruled by Georgios Papadopoulos from 1967 to 1973, but an attempt to renew its support in a 1973 referendum on the monarchy and gradual democratisation was ended by another coup by the hardliner Dimitrios Ioannidis, who ruled it until it fell on 24 July 1974 under the pressure of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, leading to the Metapolitefsi ("regime change") to democracy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic.


title: Greek junta

text: The 1967 coup and the following seven years of military rule were the culmination of 30 years of national division between the forces of the left and the right, that can be traced to the time of the resistance against Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. After the liberation in 1944, Greece descended into a civil war, fought between the communist forces and those loyal to the newly returned government-in-exile.


title: Greek junta

text: In 1944 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill determined to halt the Soviet encroachment in the Balkans, and ordered British forces to intervene in the Greek Civil War (see Dekemvriana) in the wake of the retreating German military. This was to be a lengthy and open ended commitment. The United States stepped in to help the Greek government against the communist forces in 1947.


title: Greek junta

text: In 1947, the United States formulated the Truman Doctrine, and began actively supporting a series of authoritarian governments in Greece, Turkey, and Iran in order to ensure that these states did not fall under Soviet influence. In 1945, officer veterans of the collaborationist Security Battalions had organized themselves into a secret society known as the IDEA ("Ieros Desmos Ellinon Axiomatikon"-Holy Bond of Greek Officers). From 1947 onward, the Holy Bond was subsidized to the sum of $1 million annually by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as one of Greece's main "democratic" (i.e. anti-communist) forces. Several of the future leaders of the junta, such as Georgios Papadopoulos, were members of IDEA. With American and British aid, the civil war ended with the military defeat of the communists in 1949. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its ancillary organizations were outlawed (), and many Communists either fled the country or faced persecution. The CIA and the Greek military began to work together closely, especially after Greece joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952. This included notable CIA officers Gust Avrakotos and Clair George. Avrakotos maintained a close relationship with the colonels who would figure in the later coup.


title: Greek junta

text: In 1952, IDEA issued a manifesto stating that a dictatorship was the only possible solution to Greece's problems, which the Greek scholar Christos Kassimeris called an "astonishing" statement since the communists had been defeated in 1949, Greece was enjoying relative prosperity after living standards had collapsed in the 1940s, and Greek politics were stable. Kassimeris argued that since Papadopoulos played a large role in writing the 1952 manifesto, that it was his "personal ambition" rather than an objective fear of the Greek communists that was driving him forward because in no way could Greece be presented as being on the brink of a communist take-over in 1952.


title: Greek junta

text: Greece was a vital link in the NATO defence arc which extended from the eastern border of Iran to the northernmost point in Norway. Greece in particular was seen as being at risk, having experienced a communist insurgency. In particular, the newly founded Hellenic National Intelligence Service (EYP) and the Mountain Raiding Companies (LOK) maintained a very close liaison with their American counterparts. In addition to preparing for a Soviet invasion, they agreed to guard against a left-wing coup. The LOK in particular were integrated into the European stay-behind network. Although there have been persistent rumors about an active support of the coup by the U.S. government, there is no evidence to support such claims. The timing of the coup apparently caught the CIA by surprise. Nevertheless, the United States did support the military dictatorship.


title: Greek junta

text: After many years of conservative rule, the election of the Centre Union's Georgios Papandreou as Prime Minister was a sign of change. In a bid to gain more control over the country's government than his limited constitutional powers allowed, the young and inexperienced King Constantine II clashed with liberal reformers. In July 1964, Papandreou announced his intention to fire those officers belonging to IDEA, whom the king did not want dismissed, claiming it was his royal prerogative to protect the IDEA officers, which in turn led to massive demonstrations in Athens, which had a republican flavour. The king dismissed Papandreou in 1965, causing a constitutional crisis known as the "Apostasia of 1965".


title: Greek junta

text: After making several attempts to form governments, relying on dissident Centre Union and conservative MPs, Constantine II appointed an interim government under Ioannis Paraskevopoulos, and new elections were called for 28 May 1967. There were many indications that Papandreou's Centre Union would emerge as the largest party, but would not be able to form a single-party government and would be forced into an alliance with the United Democratic Left, which was suspected by conservatives of being a proxy for the banned KKE. This possibility was used as a pretext for the coup.


title: Greek junta

text: Greek historiography and journalists have hypothesized about a "Generals' Coup", a coup that would have been deployed at Constantine's behest under the pretext of combating communist subversion.


title: Greek junta

text: Before the elections that were scheduled for 28 May 1967, with expectations of a wide Center Union victory, a number of conservative National Radical Union politicians feared that the policies of left-wing Centrists, including Andreas Papandreou (the son of Georgios Papandreou), would lead to a constitutional crisis. One such politician, George Rallis, proposed that, in case of such an "anomaly", the King should declare martial law as the monarchist constitution permitted him. According to Rallis, Constantine was receptive to the idea.


title: Greek junta

text: According to U.S. diplomat John Day, Washington also worried that Andreas Papandreou would have a very powerful role in the next government, because of his father's old age. According to Robert Keely and John Owens, American diplomats present in Athens at the time, Constantine asked U.S. Ambassador William Phillips Talbot what the American attitude would be to an extra-parliamentary solution to the problem. To this the embassy responded negatively in principle – adding, however, that, "U.S. reaction to such a move cannot be determined in advance but would depend on circumstances at the time." Constantine denies this. According to Talbot, Constantine met the army generals, who promised him that they would not take any action before the coming elections. However, the proclamations of Andreas Papandreou made them nervous, and they resolved to re-examine their decision after seeing the results of the elections.


title: Greek junta

text: In 1966, Constantine sent his envoy, Demetrios Bitsios, to Paris on a mission to persuade former prime minister Constantine Karamanlis to return to Greece and resume his prior role in politics. According to uncorroborated claims made by the former monarch, Karamanlis replied to Bitsios that he would return only if the King imposed martial law, as was his constitutional prerogative. According to Cyrus L. Sulzberger correspondent for "The New York Times", Karamanlis flew to New York City to meet with USAF General Lauris Norstad to lobby for a conservative coup that would establish Karamanlis as Greece's leader; Sulzberger alleges that Norstad declined to involve himself in such affairs. Sulzberger's account rests solely on the authority of his and Norstad's word. When, in 1997, the former King reiterated Sulzberger's allegations, Karamanlis stated that he "will not deal with the former king's statements, because both their content and attitude are unworthy of comment".


title: Greek junta

text: The deposed King's adoption of Sulzberger's claims against Karamanlis was castigated by Greece's left-leaning media, which denounced Karamanlis as "shameless" and "brazen". At the time Constantine referred exclusively to Sulzberger's account to support the theory of a planned coup by Karamanlis, and made no mention of the alleged 1966 meeting with Bitsios, which he referred to only after both participants had died and could not respond.


title: Greek junta

text: As it turned out, the constitutional crisis did not originate either from the political parties, or from the Palace, but from middle-rank army putschists.


title: Greek junta

text: On 21 April 1967, just weeks before the scheduled elections, a group of right-wing army officers led by Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos and Colonels George Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos seized power in a coup d'état. The colonels were able to seize power quickly by using elements of surprise and confusion. Pattakos was the commander of the Armour Training Centre (, ΚΕΤΘ), based in Athens.


title: Greek junta

text: The coup leaders placed tanks in strategic positions in Athens, effectively gaining complete control of the city. At the same time, a large number of small mobile units were dispatched to arrest leading politicians, authority figures, and ordinary citizens suspected of left-wing sympathies, according to lists prepared in advance. One of the first to be arrested was Lieutenant General Grigorios Spandidakis, Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Army. The colonels persuaded Spandidakis to join them, having him activate a previously-drafted action plan to move the coup forward. Under the command of paratrooper Brigadier General Kostas Aslanides, the LOK took over the Greek Defence Ministry while Pattakos gained control of communication centres, the parliament, the royal palace, and – according to detailed lists – arrested over 10,000 people.


title: Greek junta

text: By the early morning hours, the whole of Greece was in the hands of the colonels. All leading politicians, including acting Prime Minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, had been arrested and were held incommunicado by the conspirators. At 6:00 a.m. EET, Papadopoulos announced that eleven articles of the Greek constitution were suspended. One of the consequences of these suspensions was that anyone could be arrested without warrant at any time and brought before a military court to be tried. Ioannis Ladas, then the director of ESA, recounted in a later interview that "Within twenty minutes every politician, every man, every anarchist who was listed could be rounded up ... It was a simple, diabolical plan". Georgios Papandreou was arrested after a nighttime raid at his villa in Kastri, Attica. Andreas was arrested at around the same time, after seven soldiers armed with fixed bayonets and a machine gun forcibly entered his home. Andreas Papandreou escaped to the roof of his house, but surrendered after one of the soldiers held a gun to the head of his then-fourteen-year-old son George Papandreou.


title: Greek junta

text: Papadopoulos' junta attempted to re-engineer the Greek political landscape by coup. Papadopoulos as well as the other junta members are known in Greece by the term "Aprilianoi" (Aprilians), denoting the month of the coup. The term "Aprilianoi" has become synonymous with the term "dictators of 1974".


title: Greek junta

text: When the tanks came to the streets of Athens on 21 April, the legitimate National Radical Union government, of which Rallis was a member, asked King Constantine to immediately mobilise the state against the coup; he declined to do so, and swore in the dictators as the legitimate government of Greece.


title: Greek junta

text: The King, who had relented and decided to co-operate, claims to this day that he was isolated and did not know what else to do. He has since claimed that he was trying to gain time to organise a counter-coup and oust the Junta. He did organise such a counter-coup; however, the fact that the new government had a legal sanction, in that it had been appointed by the legitimate head of state, played an important role in the coup's success. The King was later to regret his decision bitterly. For many Greeks, it served to identify him indelibly with the coup and certainly played an important role in the final decision to abolish the monarchy, sanctioned by the 1974 referendum.


title: Greek junta

text: The only concession the King could achieve was to appoint a civilian as prime minister, rather than Spandidakis. Konstantinos Kollias, a former Attorney General of the Areios Pagos (supreme court), was chosen. He was a well-known royalist and had even been disciplined under the Papandreou government for meddling in the investigation of the murder of MP Gregoris Lambrakis. Kollias was little more than a figurehead and real power rested with the army, and especially Papadopoulos, who emerged as the coup's strong man and became Minister to the Presidency of the Government. Other coup members occupied key posts.


title: Greek junta

text: Up until then constitutional legitimacy had been preserved, since under the Greek Constitution the King could appoint whomever he wanted as prime minister, as long as Parliament endorsed the appointment with a vote of confidence or a general election was called. It was this government, sworn-in during the early evening hours of 21 April, that formalised the coup. It adopted a "Constituent Act", an amendment tantamount to a revolution, cancelling the elections and effectively abolishing the constitution, which would be replaced later.


title: Greek junta

text: In the meantime, the government was to rule by decree. Since traditionally such Constituent Acts did not need to be signed by the Crown, the King never signed it, permitting him to claim, years later, that he had never signed any document instituting the junta. Critics claim that Constantine II did nothing to prevent the government (and especially his chosen prime minister, Kollias) from legally instituting the authoritarian government to come. This same government published and enforced a decree, already proclaimed on radio as the coup was in progress, instituting military law. Constantine claimed he never signed that decree either.


title: Greek junta

text: From the outset, the relationship between Constantine and the colonels was an uneasy one. The colonels were not willing to share power, whereas the young king, like his father before him, was used to playing an active role in politics and would never consent to being a mere figurehead, especially in a military administration. Although the colonels' strong anti-communist, pro-NATO, and pro-Western views appealed to the United States, President Lyndon B. Johnson – in an attempt to avoid an international backlash – told Constantine that it would be best to replace the junta with a new government according to Paul Ioannidis in his book "Destiny Prevails: My life with Aristóteles Onassis". Constantine took that as an encouragement to organize a counter-coup, although no direct help or involvement of the U.S. (or Britain) was forthcoming.


title: Greek junta

text: The King finally decided to launch his counter-coup on 13 December 1967. Since Athens was militarily in the hands of the colonels, Constantine decided to fly to the small northern city of Kavala, where he hoped to be among troops loyal only to him. The vague plan that Constantine and his advisors had conceived was to form a unit that would invade and take control over Thessaloniki, where an alternative administration would be installed. Constantine hoped that international recognition and internal pressure between the two governments would force the junta to resign, leaving the field clear for him to return triumphant to Athens.


title: Greek junta

text: In the early morning hours of 13 December, the King boarded the royal plane, together with Queen Anne-Marie, their two baby children Princess Alexia and Crown Prince Pavlos, his mother Frederika, and his sister, Princess Irene. Constantine also took with him Prime Minister Kollias. At first, things seemed to be going according to plan. Constantine was well received in Kavala, which was under the command of a general loyal to him. The Hellenic Air Force and Navy, both strongly royalist and not involved in the junta, immediately declared for him and mobilised. Another of Constantine's generals effectively cut all communication between Athens and northern Greece.


title: Greek junta

text: However, Constantine's plans were overly bureaucratic, naïvely supposing that orders from a commanding general would automatically be obeyed.


title: Greek junta

text: In the circumstances, middle-ranking pro-junta officers neutralised and arrested Constantine's royalist generals and took command of their units, and subsequently put together a force to advance on Kavala to arrest the King. The junta, not at all shaken by the loss of their figurehead premier, ridiculed Constantine by announcing that he was hiding "from village to village". Realising that the counter-coup had failed, Constantine fled Greece on board the royal plane, taking his family and the helpless Kollias with him. They landed in Rome early in the morning of 14 December. Constantine remained in exile during the remainder of military rule. Although he subsequently returned to Greece, the abolition of the monarchy in 1973 removed his status as King.


title: Greek junta

text: The flight of Constantine and Kollias left Greece with no legal government or head of state. This did not concern the military junta. Instead the Revolutionary Council, composed of Pattakos, Papadopoulos, and Makarezos, appointed another member to the military administration, Major General Georgios Zoitakis, as Regent. Zoitakis then appointed Papadopoulos as prime minister. This became the only government of Greece following the failure of the King's attempted counter-coup, as Constantine was unwilling to set up an alternative administration in exile.


title: Greek junta

text: In hopes of giving legal sanction to the regime, the junta drafted a new constitution. It made the military the guardians of "social and political order", with wide autonomy from governmental and parliamentary oversight. It also heavily circumscribed the activities of political parties. The new constitution was approved in a 15 November referendum, with over 92 percent approval. However, the referendum was conducted in less-than-free circumstances; the regime deployed extensive propaganda in favour of the new document while muzzling any opposition. Under the new constitution, the regency would continue until elections were held, unless the junta called Constantine back sooner (though Constantine never acknowledged, let alone recognized, the regency). However, the junta announced that the "Revolution of April 21" (as the regime called itself) would need time to reform the "Greek mentality" before holding elections. It also suspended most of the constitution's guarantees of civil rights until the restoration of civilian rule.


title: Greek junta

text: In a legally controversial move, even under the junta's own Constitution, the Cabinet voted on 21 March 1972 to oust Zoitakis and replace him with Papadopoulos, thus combining the offices of Regent and Prime Minister. It was thought Zoitakis was problematic and interfered too much with the military. The King's portrait remained on coins, in public buildings, etc., but slowly, the military chipped away at the institution of the monarchy: the royal family's tax immunity was abolished, the complex network of royal charities was brought under direct state control, the royal arms were removed from coins, the Navy and Air Force dropped their "Royal" names, and newspapers were prohibited from publishing the King's photo or any interviews.


title: Greek junta

text: During this period, resistance against the colonels' rule became better organized among exiles in Europe and the United States. There was also considerable political infighting within the junta. Still, up until 1973, the junta appeared in firm control of Greece, and not likely to be ousted by violent means.


title: Greek junta

text: The colonels preferred to call the coup an (, 'revolution to save the nation'). Their official justification was that a "communist conspiracy" had infiltrated Greece's bureaucracy, academia, press, and military, to such an extent that drastic action was needed to protect the country from communist takeover. Thus, the defining characteristic of the Junta was its staunch anti-communism. They used the term (, 'anarcho-communist') to describe leftists in general. In a similar vein, the junta attempted to steer Greek public opinion not only by propaganda but also by inventing new words and slogans, such as (, 'old-partyism') to discredit parliamentary democracy, or (, 'Greece for Christian Greeks') to underscore its ideology. The junta's main ideological spokesmen included Georgios Georgalas and journalist Savvas Konstantopoulos, both former Marxists.


title: Greek junta

text: In 1970, Georgalas published a book "The Decline of Consumer Society", stating that consumerism had destroyed the Christian spiritual values of the West, leaving Greece as the last solitary outpost of Christian civilization. In the same book, Georgalas stated the solution to social problems was not as many believed increased employment, but instead "lengthy psycho-therapeutic programmes" which would create "the free man in harmonious co-existence with himself and his fellow beings". The British historian Richard Clogg described the writings of Georgalas and Konstantopoluos as "pretentious verbiage", claiming that they tended to use elaborate and impressive-sounding language to mask the shallowness of their theories. In essence, intellectuals like Georgalas and Konstantopoulos argued that materialism and consumerism were corroding the spiritual strength of the Greek people, and the military regime would "cure" the Greeks by restoring the traditional values of Orthodoxy (Greek Christianity). One of Papadopoulos' first acts after the coup was to change the pension laws to allow the veterans of the Security Battalions to collect pensions.


title: Greek junta

text: A central part of the regime's ideology was xenophobia, which presented Greeks as the creators of civilization with the rest of the world jealous of the debts they owed to Greece. Colonel Ioannis Ladas, the Secretary-general of the Ministry of Public Order, came to international prominence in the summer of 1968 when he personally beat up Panayiotis Lambrias, the editor of magazine "Eikones" for running an article saying that homosexuality was accepted as normal in ancient Greece. When the BBC's Greek service reported the incident, Ladas gave a rant at a press conference, claiming that the BBC was run by homosexuals, making him into a sort of unofficial spokesman for the regime.


title: Greek junta

text: At a subsequent speech before a visiting group of Greek-Americans on 6 August 1968, Ladas quoted Friderich Nietzsche's statement that the ancient Greeks invented everything and went on to say: "Foreigners confess and acknowledge Greek superiority. Human civilization was wholly fashioned by our race. Even the enemies of Greece recognize that civilization is an exclusively Greek creation". Ladas went on to denounce young men with long hair as "the degenerate phenomenon of hippy-ism", calling hippies "anti-social elements, drug addicts, sex maniacs, thieves, etc. It is only natural that they should be enemies of the army and the ideals which the military way of life serves". Ladas ended his speech by arguing that Greeks for racial reasons were still the world's preeminent people, but had only declined of inadequate leadership, a problem which had been solved by the "revolution" of 21 April 1967. Ladas claimed that Greece under military leadership would be "cured" of its problems and resume its rightful place in the world. Clogg noted that before the coup, Ladas had been associated with the far-right 4th of August Party, and contributed many articles to that party's journal, which was a "racist and anti-Semitic" magazine which glorified not only 4 August Regime, but also the Third Reich.


title: Greek junta

text: The Greek novelist Yiorgos Theotokas once coined the term (, 'ancestoritis') to describe an obsession with the heritage of the past, which many felt that Papadopoulos and the rest of the junta suffered from. Papadopoulos often described the Greeks in his speeches as the "elect of God", claiming the regenerated "" ('Greece for Christian Greeks') would be the example to the rest of the world as maintained that people all over the world would regard his ideology of "Helleno-Christian civilization" alongside the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle as the summit of intellectual achievement.


title: Greek junta

text: The Greek junta has been characterized as neo-fascist. The junta's ultranationalist, militaristic, and deeply anti-communist character has been liked to that of the interwar dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas, leading to many scholars describing the regime as fascistic.


title: Greek junta

text: Throughout his tenure as the junta strongman, Papadopoulos often employed what have been described by the BBC as gory medical metaphors, where he or the junta assumed the role of the "medical doctor". The supposed "patient" was Greece. Typically Papadopoulos or the junta portrayed themselves as the "doctor" who operated on the "patient" by putting the patient's "foot" in an orthopedic cast and applying restraints on the "patient", tying him on a surgical bed and putting him under anesthesia to perform the "operation" so that the life of the "patient" would not be "endangered" during the operation. In one of his famous speeches Papadopoulos mentioned:


title: Greek junta

text: Other metaphors contained religious imagery related to the resurrection of Christ at Easter: "" ("Christ has risen – Greece has risen"), alluding that the junta would save Greece and resurrect her into a greater, new Land. The theme of rebirth was used many times as a standard reply to avoid answering any questions as to how long the dictatorship would last:


title: Greek junta

text: As soon as the coup d'état was announced over Greek radio, martial music was continuously broadcast over the airwaves. This was interrupted from time to time with announcements of the junta issuing orders, which always started with the introduction, (, 'We decide and we order'). Long-standing political freedoms and civil liberties, that had been taken for granted and enjoyed by the Greek people for decades, were instantly suppressed. Article 14 of the Greek Constitution, which protected freedom of thought and freedom of the press, was immediately and fraudulently suspended. Military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved. Legislation that took decades to fine tune and multiple parliaments to enact was thus erased in a matter of days. The rapid dismantling of Greek democracy had begun.


title: Greek junta

text: In fact, the junta crackdown was so fast that by September 1967, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands went before the European Commission of Human Rights to accuse Greece of violating most of the human rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Following the coup, 6,188 suspected communists and political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands within the first week after the coup.


title: Greek junta

text: Under the junta, torture became a deliberate practice carried out both by the Security Police and the Greek Military Police (ESA), with an estimated 3,500 people detained in torture centres run by ESA. Commonly used methods of torture included, but were not limited to, beating the soles of detainees' feet, sexual torture, choking and ripping out body hair. The Special Interrogation Unit of the Greek Military Police (EAT/ESA) used a combination of techniques that included continuous standing in an empty room, sleep and food deprivation, beatings and loud sounds.


title: Greek junta

text: According to recent research based on new interviews with survivors, in the period from May to November 1973 this combination of interrogation techniques also included the repetition of songs that were popular hits of the time. These were played loudly and repeatedly from loudspeakers. These methods attacked the senses without leaving any visible traces and have been classified since as torture by international organisations.


title: Greek junta

text: According to a human rights report by Amnesty International, in the first month of the 21 April coup an estimated 8,000 people were arrested. James Becket, an American attorney and author of "Barbarism in Greece", was sent to Greece by Amnesty International. He wrote in December 1969 that "a conservative estimate would place at not less than two thousand" the number of people tortured.


title: Greek junta

text: The citizens' right of assembly was revoked and no political demonstrations were allowed. Surveillance on citizens was a fact of life, even during permitted social activities. That had a continuously chilling effect on the population who realized that, even though they were allowed certain social activities, they could not overstep the boundaries and delve into or discuss forbidden subjects. This realization, including the absence of any civil rights as well as maltreatment during police arrest, ranging from threats to beatings or worse, made life under the junta a difficult proposition for many ordinary citizens. Photography by ordinary citizens was banned in public locations.


title: Greek junta

text: The junta allowed citizens to participate in ordinary societal events that reflected those of the United States and United Kingdom, such as rock concerts for example. However, citizens lived in extreme fear, as any behaviour that the junta disapproved of, coupled with the complete absence of any civil rights or freedoms, could easily result in torture, beatings, exile, imprisonment, or worse, and the labelling of the victims as anarcho-communists, or worse. The absence of a valid code of jurisprudence led to the unequal application of the law among the citizens and to rampant favouritism and nepotism. Absence of elected representation meant that the citizens' stark and only choice was to submit to these arbitrary measures exactly as dictated by the junta. The country had become a true police state. Thousands were jailed for political reasons by the dictatorship and thousands were forced into exile. More than 10,000 were estimated to have been arrested in the first few days after the coup.


title: Greek junta

text: Complete lack of press freedom coupled with nonexistent civil rights meant that continuous cases of civil rights abuses could neither be reported nor investigated by an independent press or any other reputable authority. This led to a psychology of fear among the citizens during the Papadopoulos dictatorship, which became worse under Ioannidis.


title: Greek junta

text: The military government was given support by the United States as a Cold War ally, due to its proximity to the Eastern European Soviet bloc, and the fact that the previous Truman administration had given the country millions of dollars in economic aid to discourage communism. U.S. support for the junta, which was staunchly anti-communist, is claimed to be the cause of rising anti-Americanism in Greece during and following the junta's undemocratic rule.


title: Greek junta

text: There was a mixed response to the junta from Western Europe. The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands filed a complaint before the Human Rights Commission of the Council of Europe in September 1967. The Commission on Human Rights took the exceptional step of constituting a Sub-Commission to investigate the accusations of gross human rights abuses. The sub-commission reported its extensive on-site investigation and unearthed significant evidence of torture and human rights violations. Greece however opted to leave the Council of Europe in December 1969 before a full verdict of the commission could be handed down.


title: Greek junta

text: Countries such as the United Kingdom and West Germany on the other hand were voicing criticism about Greece's human rights record but supported the country's continued membership in the Council of Europe and NATO because of the country's strategic value for the western alliance.


title: Greek junta

text: To gain support for his rule, Papadopoulos projected an image that appealed to some key segments of Greek society. The son of a poor but educated rural family, he was educated at the prestigious Hellenic Military Academy. Papadopoulos allowed substantial social and cultural freedoms to all social classes, but political oppression and censorship were at times heavy-handed, especially in areas deemed sensitive by the junta, such as political activities, and politically related art, literature, film and music. Costa-Gavras's film "Z" and Mikis Theodorakis's music, among others, were never allowed even during the most relaxed times of the dictatorship, and an index of prohibited songs, literature and art was kept.


title: Greek junta

text: Remarkably, after some initial hesitation and as long as they were not deemed to be politically damaging to the junta, junta censors allowed wide access to Western music and films. Even the then-racy West German film "Helga", a 1967 sex education documentary featuring a live birth scene, had no trouble making its debut in Greece just like in any other Western country. Moreover, the film was only restricted for those under 13 years of age. In 1971 Robert Hartford-Davis was allowed by the junta to film the classic horror film "Incense for the Damned", starring Peter Cushing and Patrick Macnee and suitably featuring (), a beguiling Greek siren with vampire tendencies, on the Greek island of Hydra. In 1970 the film "Woodstock" was shown all over Greece, with reports of arrests and disturbances especially in Athens as many youths flocked to see the film and filled theatres to capacity, while many others were left outside. Films such as "Marijuana Stop!" dealt with the hippie culture and its perception in Greek society as drug-using.


title: Greek junta

text: Meanwhile, at Matala, Crete, a hippie colony which had been living in the caves since the 1960s was never disturbed. Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell was inspired to write the song "Carey" after staying in the Matala caves with the hippie community in 1971. Hippie colonies also existed in other popular tourist spots such as "Paradise Beach" in Mykonos.


title: Greek junta

text: During its rule, the dictatorship heavily utilized folk music in mass media in order to help solidify the relationship between the junta and Greek national identity, in turn legitimizing its rule over the country. The regime sponsored song contests and concerts featuring folk musicians throughout its existence. The favoured types of music employed by the government were those which accompanied the Kalamatianos and Tsamiko folk dances. Additionally, the regime encouraged the production of new folk songs with lyrics praising the government and its leaders, like Georgios Papadopoulos. Because the clarinet was so strongly featured in the music of the junta, it remains associated with the Colonels by many Greeks today. The ideology behind the promotion of folk music was twofold: to bridge the gap of continuity with Greece's past and present, and to limit foreign cultural influences such as psychedelic music (which could hold political connotations contrary to those of the junta) by substituting them with traditionally Greek ones. Folk music was also used as an ideological weapon against dissidents, and it was played constantly in detention centres to help break prisoners.


title: Greek junta

text: In the early days of the dictatorship, Western music broadcasts were limited from the airwaves in favour of martial music, but this was eventually relaxed. In addition, pop/rock music programmes such as the one hosted by famous Greek music/radio/television personality and promoter Nico Mastorakis were very popular throughout the dictatorship years both on radio and television. Most Western record sales were similarly not restricted. In fact, even rock concerts and tours were allowed such as by the then popular rock groups Socrates Drank the Conium and Nostradamos.


title: Greek junta

text: Another pop group, Poll, was a pioneer of Greek pop music in the early 1970s. Its lead singer and composer was Robert Williams, who was later joined, in 1971, by Kostas Tournas. Poll enjoyed a number of nationwide hits, such as " (Mankind Love One Another)", an anti-war song composed by Tournas, and " (Come, My Sun)", composed by Tournas, Williams. Tournas later pursued a solo career and in 1972 produced the progressive psychedelic hit solo album (, 'Infinite Fields'). He wrote and arranged the album using an orchestra and a rock group ("Ruth") combination, producing a rock opera which is considered a landmark of Greek rock. In 1973 Kostas Tournas created the album ("Stardreams"), influenced by David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust".


title: Greek junta

text: Songwriter Dionysis Savvopoulos, who was initially imprisoned by the regime, nevertheless rose to great popularity and produced a number of influential and highly politically allegorical, especially against the junta, albums during the period, including (, 'The Madman's Orchard'), (, the name of Greek folk dance) and (, 'Dirty Bread').


title: Greek junta

text: Concurrently, tourism was actively encouraged by Papadopoulos' government and, funding scandals notwithstanding, there was great development of the tourist sector. With tourism came nightlife. However, under Papadopoulos, in the absence of any civil rights these sociocultural freedoms existed in a legal vacuum that meant they were not guaranteed, but rather dispensed at the whim of the junta. In addition any transgressing into political matters during social or cultural activities usually meant arrest and punishment. Tourism was furthered by the 1969 European Championships in Athletics in Athens which showed political normality. Even the boycott of the West German team was not directed against the junta, but against its own team leadership. Although discos and nightclubs were, initially, subjected to a curfew, partially due to an energy crisis, this was eventually extended from 1:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. as the energy crisis eased. These freedoms were later reversed by Dimitrios Ioannidis after his coup.


title: Greek junta

text: The farmers were Papadopoulos's natural constituency and were more likely to support him, seeing him as one of their own because of his rural roots. He cultivated this relationship by appealing to them, calling them (, 'the backbone of the people') and cancelling all agricultural loans. By further insisting on promoting, but not really enforcing for fear of middle-class backlash, religion and patriotism, he further appealed to the simpler ideals of rural Greece and strengthened his image as people's champion among farmers, who tended to ridicule the middle class. Furthermore, the regime promoted a policy of economic development in rural areas, which were mostly neglected by the previous governments, that had focused largely on urban industrial development.


title: Greek junta

text: While never strongly supported by the urban middle class, they at first generally accepted Papadopoulos's rule (albeit reluctantly). Bourgeois Greeks acquiesced to the junta with the understanding that the dictatorship would be temporary and that the colonels would hold free elections upon the restoration of order. In addition, the Greek business community largely approved of the regime's economic policies, especially its promotion of tourism.


title: Greek junta

text: The 1967–1973 period was marked by high rates of economic growth coupled with low inflation and low unemployment. Economic growth was driven by investment in the tourism industry, loose emigration policies, public spending, and pro-business incentives that fostered both domestic and foreign capital spending. Several international companies invested in Greece at the time, including The Coca-Cola Company. Economic growth started losing steam by 1972.


title: Greek junta

text: In addition, large scale construction of hydroelectric dam projects, such as in Aliakmon, Kastrakion, Polyphytos, the expansion of thermoelectric generation units and other significant infrastructure development, took place. The junta used to proudly announce these projects with the slogan: (, 'Greece is a construction zone'). The always smiling Stylianos Pattakos, also known as (, 'the first trowel of Greece'), since he frequently appeared at project inaugurations with a trowel in hand, starred in many of the propaganda documentaries that were screened before feature film presentation in Greek cinemas.


title: Greek junta

text: Economists have criticized the waste, fraud, and abuse derived from the junta's economic policies. One notable example is tourism minister Ioannis Ladas' practice of granting ill advised loans to would be hoteliers in order to promote the tourism industry. This fostered the erection of a multitude of hotels, sometimes in non-tourist areas, and with no underlying business rationale. Several such hotels were abandoned unfinished as soon as the loans were secured, and their remains still dot the Greek countryside. These questionable loans are referred to as (, 'loans of the sea'), to indicate the loose terms under which they were granted.


title: Greek junta

text: Another contested policy of the regime was the writing-off of agricultural loans, up to a value of 100,000 drachmas, to farmers. This has been attributed to an attempt by Papadopoulos to gain public support for his regime.


title: Greek junta

text: At the time, the Italian far right was very impressed with the methods of Papadopoulos and his junta. In April 1968, Papadopoulos invited fifty members of the Italian far right on a Greek tour, to demonstrate the junta's methods. Invitees included Stefano Delle Chiaie and members of Ordine Nuovo, Avanguardia Nazionale, Europa Civiltà, and FUAN-La Caravella. (cf Frattini, Entity, 2004, p. 304) The Italians were impressed. Upon returning to their country, they escalated their political violence, embarking on a terror campaign of bombings and other violence which killed and injured hundreds. Afterwards, the right-wing instigators of this violence blamed the communists.


title: Greek junta

text: After their visit to Greece, the Italian neo-fascists also engaged in false flag operations and embarked on a campaign of infiltration of leftist, anarchist, and Marxist–Leninist organisations. One of the neo-fascists conducted frequent provocations and infiltrations in the months leading to the Piazza Fontana bombing on 12 December 1969. The Greek junta was so impressed with the manner in which their Italian counterparts were paving the way toward an Italian coup d'état that, on 15 May 1969, Papadopoulos sent them a congratulatory message stating that "His Excellency the Prime Minister notes that the efforts that have been undertaken by the Greek National government in Italy for some time start to have some impact".


title: Greek junta

text: The entire left wing of the Greek political spectrum, including the long outlawed Communist Party of Greece, opposed the junta from the start. Many new militant groups formed in 1968, both in exile and in Greece, to promote democratic rule. These included Panhellenic Liberation Movement, Democratic Defense, and the Socialist Democratic Union. The first armed action against the junta was Alexandros Panagoulis's failed attempt to assassinate George Papadopoulos, on 13 August 1968.


title: Greek junta

text: The assassination attempt took place on the morning of 13 August, when Papadopoulos went from his summer residence in Lagonisi to Athens, escorted by his personal security motorcycles and cars. Alexandros Panagoulis ignited a bomb at a point of the coastal road where the limousine carrying Papadopoulos had to slow down, but the bomb failed to harm Papadopoulos. Panagoulis was captured a few hours later in a nearby sea cave, as the boat that would let him escape the scene of the attack had not shown up.


title: Greek junta

text: Panagoulis was transferred to the Greek Military Police (EAT-ESA) offices, where he was questioned, beaten, and tortured (see the proceedings of Theofiloyiannakos's trial). On 17 November 1968, he was sentenced to death. He remained in prison for five years. After democracy was restored, Panagoulis was elected into Parliament. He is regarded as emblematic of the struggle to restore democracy.


title: Greek junta

text: The funeral of George Papandreou, Sr., on 3 November 1968, spontaneously turned into a massive demonstration against the junta. Thousands of Athenians disobeyed the military's orders, and followed the casket to the cemetery. The junta arrested 41 people.


title: Greek junta

text: On 28 March 1969, after two years of widespread censorship, political detentions and torture, Giorgos Seferis, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963, took a stand against the junta. He made a statement on the BBC World Service, with copies simultaneously distributed to every newspaper in Athens. Attacking the colonels, he passionately demanded that "This anomaly must end". Seferis died before the junta ended. His funeral, on 20 September 1972, turned into a massive demonstration against the military government.


title: Greek junta

text: Also in 1969, Costa-Gavras released the film "Z", based on a book by celebrated left-wing writer Vassilis Vassilikos. The film, banned in Greece, presented a lightly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of United Democratic Left MP Gregoris Lambrakis in 1963. The film captured the sense of outrage about the junta. The soundtrack of the film was written by Mikis Theodorakis, who was imprisoned by the junta and later went into exile, and the music was smuggled into the country and added to other inspirational, underground Theodorakis tracks.


title: Greek junta

text: A lesser known Danish film, in Greek, "Your Neighbor's Son", detailed the subordination and training of simple youths to become torturers for the junta.


title: Greek junta

text: The junta exiled thousands, on the grounds that they were communists and/or "enemies of the country". Most of them were subjected to internal exile on Greek deserted islands, such as Makronisos, Gyaros, Gioura, or inhabited islands such as Leros, Agios Eustratios or Trikeri.


title: Greek junta

text: The most famous were in external exile, most of whom were substantially involved in the resistance, organising protests in European capital cities or helping and hiding refugees from Greece.


title: Greek junta

text: These included: Melina Mercouri, actor, singer (and, after 1981 Minister for Culture); Mikis Theodorakis, composer of resistance songs; Costas Simitis (prime minister from 1996 to 2004); Andreas Papandreou (prime minister from 1981 to 1989 and again from 1993 to 1996); and Lady Amalia Fleming (wife of Sir Alexander Fleming, philanthropist, political activist). Some chose exile, unable to stand life under the junta. For example, Melina Mercouri was allowed to enter Greece, but stayed away on her own accord.


title: Greek junta

text: In the early hours of 19 September 1970, in Matteotti square in Genoa, geology student Kostas Georgakis set himself ablaze in protest against the dictatorship of George Papadopoulos. The junta delayed the arrival of his remains to Corfu for four months, fearing public reaction and protests. At the time, his death caused a sensation in Greece and abroad, as it was the first tangible manifestation of the depth of resistance against the junta. He is the only known anti-junta resistance activist to have sacrificed himself. He is considered the precursor of later student protest, such as the Athens Polytechnic uprising. The Municipality of Corfu dedicated a memorial in his honour, near his home in Corfu city.


title: Greek junta

text: In a speech before the U.S. Senate on 6 November 1971, Senator Lee Metcalf listed the members of the Greek junta who had served in the collaborationist Security Battalions and denounced the administration of Richard Nixon for supporting what he called a "junta of Nazi collaborators". The German writer, investigative reporter and journalist Günter Wallraff traveled to Greece in May 1974. While in Syntagma Square, he protested against human right violations. He was arrested and tortured by the police, as he did not carry, on purpose, any papers on him that could identify him as a foreigner. After his identity was revealed, Wallraff was convicted and sentenced to 14 months in jail. He was released in August, after the end of the dictatorship.


title: Greek junta

text: In an anti-junta protest, on 23 May 1973, HNS "Velos", under the command of Commander Nikolaos Pappas, refused to return to Greece after participating in a NATO exercise and remained anchored at Fiumicino, Italy. During a patrol with other NATO vessels between continental Italy and Sardinia, the commander and the officers heard over the radio that a number of fellow naval officers had been arrested in Greece. Commander Pappas was involved in a group of democratic officers who remained loyal to their oath to obey the Constitution and planned to act against the junta. Evangelos Averoff also participated in the "Velos" mutiny, for which he was later arrested as an "instigator".


title: Greek junta

text: Pappas believed that since his fellow anti-junta officers had been arrested, there was no more hope for a movement inside Greece. He therefore decided to act alone in order to motivate global public opinion. He mustered all the crew to the stern and announced his decision, which was received with enthusiasm by the crew.


title: Greek junta

text: Pappas signalled his intentions to the squadron commander and NATO headquarters, quoting the preamble of the North Atlantic Treaty, which declares that "all governments ... are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law", and, leaving formation, sailed for Rome. There, anchored about away from the coast of Fiumicino, three ensigns sailed ashore with a whaleboat, went to Fiumicino Airport and telephoned the international press agencies, notifying them of the situation in Greece, the presence of the destroyer, and that the captain would hold a press conference the next day.


title: Greek junta

text: This action increased international interest in the situation in Greece. The commander, six officers, and twenty five petty officers requested permission to remain abroad as political refugees. Indeed, the whole crew wished to follow their commander but were advised by its officers to remain onboard and return to Greece to inform families and friends about what happened. "Velos" returned to Greece after a month with a replacement crew. After the fall of the junta all officers and petty officers returned to the Navy.


title: Greek junta

text: The collapse of the junta both ideologically and politically was triggered by a series of events which unfolded soon after Papadopoulos' attempt at liberalisation, with ideological collapse preceding its eventual political collapse. During and following this ill-fated process the internal political strains of the junta came to the fore and pitted the junta factions against each other, thus destroying the seemingly monolithic cohesion of the dictatorship.


title: Greek junta

text: This had the effect of seriously weakening the coherence of the political message and, consequently, the regime's credibility. Later events showed that this was a fatal blow, from which the junta never recovered. At the same time, during Papadopoulos' attempt at liberalisation, some of the junta constraints were removed from Greece's body politic. This led to demands for more freedoms, and political unrest, in a society well used to democratic action prior to the dictatorship.


title: Greek junta

text: Papadopoulos had indicated as early as 1968 that he was eager for a reform process. He had declared at the time that he did not want the "Revolution" (junta speak for the "dictatorship") to become a "regime". He attempted to initiate reforms in 1969 and 1970 but was thwarted by the hardliners, including Ioannidis. Subsequent to his 1970 failed attempt at reform, he threatened to resign. He was dissuaded when the hardliners renewed their personal allegiance to him.


title: Greek junta

text: On 10 April 1970 Papadopoulos announced the formation of the (, "Advisory Council") otherwise known as "Papadopoulos' (pseudo) Parliament". Composed of members elected through an electoral type process but limited only to (, 'regime supporters'), it was bicameral, composed of the Central Advisory Council and the Provincial Advisory Council. The Central Council met in Athens in the Parliament Building. Both councils had the purpose to advise the dictator. At the time of the announcement of the formation of the council, Papadopoulos explained that he wanted to avoid using the term (, 'Parliament') for the Committee because it sounded bad.


title: Greek junta

text: The council was dissolved just prior to Papadopoulos' failed attempt to liberalise his regime. As internal dissatisfaction grew in the early 1970s, and especially after an abortive coup by the Navy in early 1973, Papadopoulos attempted to legitimize the regime by beginning a gradual "democratization" (See also the article on Metapolitefsi).


title: Greek junta

text: On 1 June 1973, he abolished the monarchy and declared Greece a republic with himself as president. He was confirmed in office after a controversial referendum, the results of which were not recognised by the political parties. He furthermore sought the support of the old political establishment, but secured only the cooperation of Spiros Markezinis, who was appointed Prime Minister. Concurrently, many restrictions were lifted, and the army's role significantly reduced. Papadopoulos intended to establish a presidential republic, with extensive–and within the context of the system, almost dictatorial–powers vested in the office of President, which he held. The decision to return to political rule and the restriction of their role was resented by many of the regime's supporters in the Army, whose dissatisfaction with Papadopoulos would become evident a few months later.


title: Greek junta

text: Papadopoulos' heavy-handed attempt at liberalisation did not find favour among many in Greece. The stilted democratisation process he proposed was constrained by multiple factors. His inexperience at carrying out an unprecedented political experiment of democratisation was burdened by his tendency to concentrate as much power in his hands as possible, a weakness he exhibited during the junta years when he would sometimes hold multiple high-echelon government portfolios. This especially antagonised the intelligentsia, whose primary exponents were the students. The students at the Law School in Athens, for example, demonstrated multiple times against the dictatorship prior to the events at the Polytechneion.


title: Greek junta

text: The tradition of student protest was always strong in Greece, even before the dictatorship. Papadopoulos tried hard to suppress and discredit the student movement during his tenure at the helm of the junta. But the liberalisation process he undertook allowed the students to organise more freely, and this gave the opportunity to the students at the National Technical University of Athens to organise a demonstration that grew progressively larger and more effective. The political momentum was on the side of the students. Sensing this, the junta panicked and reacted violently.


title: Greek junta

text: In the early hours of Saturday, 17 November 1973, Papadopoulos sent the army to suppress the student strike and sit-in of the (, 'Free Besieged'), as the students called themselves, at the Athens Polytechnic which had commenced on 14 November. Shortly after 3:00 am. EET, under almost complete cover of darkness, an AMX 30 tank crashed through the rail gate of the Athens Polytechnic with subsequent loss of life. An estimated 24 people were killed. The army also occupied Syntagma Square for at least the following day. Even the sidewalk cafes were closed.


title: Greek junta

text: Ioannidis' involvement in inciting unit commanders to commit criminal acts during the uprising, so that he could facilitate his own upcoming coup, was noted in the indictment presented to the court by the prosecutor during the Greek junta trials, and in his subsequent conviction in the Polytechneion trial where he was found to have been morally responsible for the events.


title: Greek junta

text: The uprising triggered a series of events that put an abrupt end to Papadopoulos' attempts at "liberalisation".


title: Greek junta

text: Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis, a disgruntled junta hardliner and long-time protégé of Papadopoulos as head of the feared Military Police, used the uprising as a pretext to reestablish public order, and staged a counter-coup that overthrew Papadopoulos and Spyros Markezinis on 25 November. Military law was reinstated, and the new Junta appointed General Phaedon Gizikis as president and economist Adamantios Androutsopoulos as Prime Minister, although Ioannidis remained the behind-the-scenes strongman.


title: Greek junta

text: Ioannidis's heavy-handed and opportunistic intervention had the effect of destroying the myth that the junta was an idealistic group of army officers with exactly the same ideals who came to save Greece by using their collective wisdom. The main tenet of the junta ideology (and mythology) was gone and so was the collective. By default, he remained the only man at the top after toppling the other three principals of the junta. Characteristically, he cited ideological reasons for ousting the Papadopoulos faction, accusing them with straying from the principles of the Revolution, especially of being corrupt and misusing their privileges as army officers for financial gains.


title: Greek junta

text: Papadopoulos and his junta always claimed that the 21 April 1967 "revolution" saved Greece from the old party system. Now Ioannidis was, in effect, claiming that his coup saved the revolution from the Papadopoulos faction. The dysfunction as well as the ideological fragmentation and fractionalisation of the junta was finally out in the open. Ioannidis, however, did not make these accusations personally as he always tried to avoid unnecessary publicity. The radio broadcasts, following the now familiar "coup in progress" scenario featuring martial music interspersed with military orders and curfew announcements, kept repeating that the army was taking back the reins of power in order to save the principles of the revolution and that the overthrow of the Papadopoulos-Markezinis government was supported by the army, navy and air force.


title: Greek junta

text: At the same time they announced that the new coup was a "continuation of the revolution of 1967" and accused Papadopoulos with "straying from the ideals of the 1967 revolution" and "pushing the country towards parliamentary rule too quickly".


title: Greek junta

text: Prior to seizing power, Ioannidis preferred to work in the background and he never held any formal office in the junta. He was now the "de facto" leader of a puppet regime composed by members some of whom were rounded up by Greek Military Police (ESA) soldiers in roving jeeps to serve and others that were simply chosen by mistake. The Ioannidis method of forming a government dealt yet another blow to the rapidly diminishing credibility of the regime both at home and abroad.


title: Greek junta

text: The new junta, despite its rather inauspicious origins, pursued an aggressive internal crackdown and an expansionist foreign policy.


title: Greek junta

text: Sponsored by Ioannidis, on 15 July 1974 a coup d'état on the island of Cyprus overthrew Archbishop Makarios III, the Cypriot President. Turkey replied to this by invading Cyprus and occupying the northern part of the island, after heavy fighting with the Cypriot and Greek ELDYK Forces (, "Greek Force for Cyprus"). During a military council, Ioannidis is reported to have said angrily to the American minister Joseph J. Sisco (who was present) "You betrayed us! You had assured us that you would prevent any Turkish landing".


title: Greek junta

text: There was a well-founded fear that an all-out war with Turkey was imminent. The Cyprus fiasco led to senior Greek military officers withdrawing their support for Junta strongman Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis. Junta-appointed President Phaedon Gizikis called a meeting of old-guard politicians, including Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Spiros Markezinis, Stephanos Stephanopoulos, Evangelos Averoff, and others.


title: Greek junta

text: The agenda was to appoint a national unity government that would lead the country to elections. Although former Prime Minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos was originally backed, on 23 July, Gizikis finally invited former Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, who had resided in Paris since 1963, to assume the role. Karamanlis returned to Athens on a French Presidency Learjet made available to him by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, a close personal friend, and was sworn in as Prime Minister under President Phaedon Gizikis. Karamanlis' new party, New Democracy, won the November 1974 general election, and he became prime minister.


title: Greek junta

text: Parliamentary democracy was thus restored and the Greek legislative elections of 1974 were the first free elections held in a decade. A referendum held 8 December 1974 rejected re-establishment of the monarchy by a 2-to-1 margin, and Greece became a republic.


title: Greek junta

text: While the physical collapse of the junta as a government was immediately caused by the Cyprus debacle, its ideological collapse was already triggered by the 1973 Athens Polytechnic uprising. The uprising at the Polytechneion was the event that discredited the military government most and acted as a key catalyst for its eventual demise by exposing the internal contradictions and stresses of the regime, thus destroying the myth of the political cohesion of the junta and, therefore, irreparably damaging the political credibility of the and its message.


title: Greek junta

text: In January 1975 the junta members were arrested and in early August of the same year the government of Konstantinos Karamanlis brought charges of high treason and insurrection against Georgios Papadopoulos and nineteen other co-conspirators of the military junta. The mass trial was staged at the Korydallos Prison. The trial was described as "Greece's Nuremberg". One thousand soldiers armed with submachine guns provided security. The roads leading to the jail were patrolled by tanks.


title: Greek junta

text: Papadopoulos, Pattakos, Makarezos and Ioannidis were sentenced to death for high treason. These sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment by the Karamanlis government for humanitarian reasons. A plan to grant amnesty to the junta principals by the Konstantinos Mitsotakis government in 1990 was cancelled after protests from conservatives, socialists and communists.


title: Greek junta

text: Papadopoulos died in the hospital in 1999 after being transferred from Korydallos while Ioannidis remained incarcerated until his death in 2010. This trial was followed by a second trial which centred on the events and the murders during the Athens Polytechnic uprising and a third called "The trial of the torturers".


title: Greek junta

text: The historical repercussions of the junta were profound and are still felt to this day in Greece. Internally the absence of civil rights and the oppression that followed created a sense of fear and persecution among many in the population creating trauma and division that persisted long after the fall of the junta. The Cyprus debacle created a tragedy that is still unfolding.


title: Greek junta

text: While the Cyprus fiasco was due to the actions of Ioannidis, it was Papadopoulos who started the cycle of coups. Externally, the absence of human rights in a country belonging to the Western Bloc during the Cold War was a continuous source of embarrassment for the free world (considering Greece is seen as the country which introduced democracy to the rest of the world), and this and other reasons made Greece an international pariah abroad and interrupted its process of integration with the European Union with incalculable opportunity costs.


title: Greek junta

text: The 21 April regime remains highly controversial to this day, with most Greeks holding very strong and polarised views in regards to it. According to a survey by Kapa Research published in the centre-left newspaper "To Vima" in 2002, the majority of the electoral body (54.7%) consider the regime to have been bad or harmful for Greece while 20.7% consider it to have been good for Greece and 19.8% believe that it was neither good nor harmful. In April 2013, the Metron Analysis Poll, found that 30% of Greeks yearned for the "better" days of the Junta.


title: Greek junta

text: The experiences in Greece were formative for several CIA officers, including Clair George and Gust Avrakotos. Avrakotos, for example, dealt with the aftermath when Revolutionary Organization 17 November murdered his superior, CIA station chief Richard Welch, in 1975. Many of his junta-connected associates were also assassinated in this time period. Avrakotos himself had his cover blown by the media and his life became endangered. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton apologised on the behalf of the U.S. government for supporting the military junta in the name of Cold War tactics.


title: Greek junta

text: There has been speculation that lingering social effects of the junta played a role in the rise of Golden Dawn, an extreme right-wing party which gained eighteen seats in parliament in two successive elections in 2012, in the midst of Greece's ongoing debt crisis. Golden Dawn's leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, met the leaders of the junta while in prison and was inspired to lay the foundations for the party. Some have linked alleged support of Golden Dawn by Hellenic Police officers to the party's statements sympathising with the junta, which commentators note would appeal to policemen whose livelihoods are threatened by harsh austerity measures.


title: Koreans

text: Koreans mainly live in the two Korean nation states: North Korea and South Korea (collectively and simply referred to as just Korea). They are also an officially recognized ethnic minority in other Asian countries; such as China, Japan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Koreans also form sizeable communities in Europe, specifically in Russia, Germany, United Kingdom, and France. Over the course of the 20th century, Korean communities have also formed in the Americas (especially in the United States and Canada) and Oceania.


title: Koreans

text: South Koreans refer to themselves as Hanguk-in or Hanguk-saram , both of which mean "people of the Han". When including members of the Korean diaspora, Koreans often use the term Han-in. Korean Americans refer to themselves as 'Han-gukgye Migukin'.


title: Koreans

text: North Koreans refer to themselves as "Joseon-in" (Korean: 조선인, Hanja: 朝鮮人) or "Joseon-saram" (), both of which literally mean "People of Joseon" The term "Joseon" is derived from the "Joseon dynasty", a Korean kingdom founded by Lee Seong-gye that lasted for approximately five centuries from 1392 to 1910. Using similar words, Koreans in China refer to themselves as Chaoxianzu in Chinese or Joseonjok, Joseonsaram in Korean, which are cognates that literally mean "Joseon ethnic group". Koreans in Japan refer to themselves as Zainichi Chousenjin, Chousenjin in Japanese or Jaeil Joseonin, Joseonsaram, Joseonin in Korean. Ethnic Koreans living in Russia and Central Asia refer to themselves as Koryo-saram , alluding to Goryeo, a Korean dynasty spanning from 918 to 1392.


title: Koreans

text: In the chorus of the South Korean national anthem, Koreans are referred to as Daehan-saram which means 'The People of Great Han'.


title: Koreans

text: In an interkorean context, such as when dealing with the Korean language(s) or the Korean ethnicity as a whole, additionally the term 'HanGyeoRe' is used.