“The Pirate Party, which campaigns for open access to technology and Internet freedom, has established a political presence in Greece”, as Bloomberg reports.
Based on the model of the Swedish Pirate Party, it supports reform of copyright law, the abolition of patents, and respect for privacy.
Pirate Party’s members have already organized their first protest over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, that is going to be held on Saturday afternoon.
The goals of Pirate Parties internationally are, among others, to raise awareness of, spread and unify the pirate movement through coordination, information-sharing, and assisting in the foundation of new pirate parties. The party strives to reform laws regarding copyright and patents.
The agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy, both on the Internet and res extensa (physical life), and the transparency of state administration.
Pirates believe that as in the other European countries, in Greece they will be supported by people aged 18-45 years, “i.e. those people who were the first to use a computer 25 years ago and today’s young people whose lives are connected to computers”.
The Pirate Party is completely different from the familiar political forms because of another typical feature it has. It has no chairman and it is managed by a council of seven. In their articles of association it is provided that one of them assumes the leadership every four months on a rotating basis.
Party members are aged between 22 and 42 years old and about three-quarters of them are students or are employed in the field of information and communication technologies.
There have been 56 pirate parties established across the world, 21 of them officially recognized. There are two deputies sitting at the European Parliament, 15 sitting in national parliaments and 194 in municipalities across Europe. The elected members are on average young people under 30 years old. In recent local elections in Berlin, Germany, the Pirate Party won 9% of the votes.
The website address of the Greek Pirate Party website is www.pirateparty.gr , and it also contains a discussion forum at http://www.pirateparty.gr/forum/.
Salonica
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