Maria Syrengela<\/b> represented the European People’s Party<\/b> in a crucial debate<\/b> on Democracy<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Maria Syrengela<\/b>, MP for West Athens and member of the Greek delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe<\/b>, represented the European People’s Party<\/b> in the debate “Violence and Hate Rhetoric against politicians: a danger for democracy<\/strong>” during the plenary session in Strasbourg.<\/p>\n She spoke about the toxicity<\/strong> with which politicians both in Greece and in Europe are treated by their political opponents, but also about the return of populism<\/strong>: “Many members of Parliament have been subjected to threats, insults, harassment and aggressive targeting<\/strong> both in public life and online. Too often, disagreement turns into hate, and we know that hate can easily turn into violence<\/strong>. Despite the lessons of the past, populism still exists and we are seeing it emerge again, not only in Europe but around the world.”<\/p>\n She also mentioned the personal attacks she has received, with her children as the recipients: “I too have been a victim of hate mail<\/strong>. I even received comments on social media wishing for the death of my children<\/strong>. No parent, no public figure should ever have to face such cruelty. When political hatred turns into attacks on families and children, we must recognize how deeply corrupted our public discourse<\/strong> has become.”<\/p>\n Finally, he stressed the need for Europe to act collectively, both by pushing social media platforms<\/strong> to take action and by politicians themselves who must resist such practices: “First, online platforms must act responsibly and transparently<\/strong> in the face of coordinated hate campaigns, threats and incitement to violence. Secondly, we politicians ourselves must lead by example. Words matter<\/strong>. If we tolerate demonization, we should not be surprised when extremism follows. Let us defend democratic dialogue<\/strong> without accepting violence. Let us ensure that future generations inherit a politics shaped by ideas rather than intimidation<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maria Syrengela represented the European People’s Party in a crucial debate on democracy.
\nMaria Syrengela, MP for West Athens and member of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}