March 31, 2023

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Chronicles of madness: the man who kicked the cat was arrested on the personal order of the minister

The incident with the cat, which was lured with fish in a tavern and then kicked off the platform, led to a wave of indignation on social networks, followed by a personal order for the arrest of the “intruder”.

A video that has surfaced on social media shows a man luring a cat with a fish. When the animal approaches, he kicks him, after which the cat “flies away” from the platform. This situation was filmed by a friend of the accused and uploaded it to his Facebook feed.

The video of animal cruelty caused outrage and led to the fact that the Minister of Civil Protection (MVD) intervened in the incident, who personally approached his subordinate police and the department of electronic crimes with a demand to immediately find and arrest the perpetrators.

This “terrible incident” took place in the Aidipsos tavern on the island of Evia on May 1st.


In the video that sparked outrage, the cats are seen approaching a table, then the perpetrator with a leg tattoo lures one of them with a fish and then kicks him. “His friends laugh when he wants to do the same with the second cat. No one tries to stop him or even object,” Stamatina Stamataku, an animal welfare journalist, describes the situation. She also published the names of the “criminal” and his two friends, a man and a woman, who also posted the “shameful video”.

At first, it was not clear what happened after the cat was kicked, as the video gives the impression that he fell into the sea. Members of the local society for the protection of animals immediately rushed to investigate the problem and reported to the animal welfare website zoosos.grthat, according to the owner of the tavern, the two cats belong to him, assuring that they are all right, and that he “help find the culprit”.

As the wave of outrage spread, the “perpetrator”, a young man, uploaded several videos to social media in which he cursed his critics with nasty words, stating, among other things, that he was a “victim of bullying”. He claimed that the company drank before “playing tricks with the cat.” He claimed that the cat fell “20 cm down on the pebbles”. He went on to claim that he loves animals and takes care of dozens of stray cats and dogs.

The Greek society of animal lovers remained indifferent to the excuses and continued to demand his punishment. Early Monday morning, Minister for the Protection of Citizens, Takis Theodorikakos, as cnn reports, personally contacted the head of the Greek police, making it clear that all the protagonists of the infamous video should be discovered, arrested and brought to justice as soon as possible.

Under the Animal Welfare Act, cruelty to animals in the country is punishable by a fine of 50,000 euros and is considered a criminal offense punishable by 10 years in prison if an animal is killed.

Late Monday evening, Citizens Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos tweeted that the main criminal of Greece is arrested. “Some time ago, the Greek police arrested a man who kicked and threw out a cat. Violence against animals is unacceptable. The government has passed a strict law on the protection of animals from cruelty, which is now in force, but in any case, this is a matter of humanity and culture. I am deeply saddened by those “who treat animals and those who tolerate it. I heartily congratulate those who raised this issue. The decision now belongs to Greek justice,” the minister wrote.

PS No, of course, I sympathize with the cat, who instead of a fish got a kick in the ass, I might even give a similar kick to that man “for the cat.” But I have another question. In a country where the crime rate in recent years has grown exponentiallywhere the police without any reason apply violence against citizenswhere the actual killing of a courier by a driver of a high-ranking official does not cause even condemnation from the authoritiesand hired killers massively shoot their victims on the streets of the capital, the minister personally deals with the topic of a cat that was kicked, giving a tough order to find and punish. And this despite the fact that the level of freedom of speech in Greece fell to the lowest place in Europe. Don’t you think this is the height of cynicism?

Let the animal rights activists start kicking me, but I sympathize with the young man who fell under the “skating rink of justice.” Probably now he will be fined a large amount and, perhaps, even put in jail, where they will laugh at him until he has stomach cramps. While the police does not even investigate tens of thousands of thefts and robberieswhich occur annually in the country, simply because of the lack of police officers (and the lack of a special desire to look for something for nothing, to be honest).



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