May 2, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Kozani: queues from dawn for… identity cards


With the first rays of the sun, long lines line up near the Kozani Police Headquarters. People are rushing to get/renew old ID cards for fear of “chips” in the new ones.

New, digital IDs are scheduled to be issued in September, and many people, based on information received online from certain groups, fear that they will contain a chip to determine their location.

How writes Kozanimedia, in a panic, some even spend the night under the building of the police department in order to have time to get the coveted document. A similar picture is observed in Thessaloniki and Athens.

According to the citizens found on Friday (18.08) near the Kozani police station, some of them spent the night at the entrance, arriving at one or two in the morning. In Athens, people bring stools with them for long waits, and many who arrive at dawn do not have time to be served on the same day – they are told that there are no empty seats.

Previously in the article grtimes.gr reported that there has been a sharp increase in the number of people in the police stations of Thessaloniki who want to renew or replace their police cards, and some are even asking for information about their children, who are due to receive an identity card for the first time just in September.

According to the publication, the bus took the nuns from the monastery in Thessaloniki prefecture to the police station to apply en masse for old-style identity cards, so that they can have them for ten years before they are forced to replace them with new digital ones.

There is a growing reaction on social networks to the digital form of the document, either claiming that they will be constantly monitored, or talking about “attacking” Christians and “engraving the Antichrist.” The reaction is presented both by priests and Orthodox associations, 22 of which raise the question of the absolute violation of individual and public freedoms, the issue of national security and the issue of faith, the “numbering of the individual and the violation of the God-given freedom of a person who is the image of God, and about the presence of the notorious number 666 in the new identity cards, which is incompatible with the Christian faith.

Former Civil Protection Minister Notis Mitarakis and ELAS head Lieutenant General Lazaros Mavropoulos met with Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus at the end of July, while they spoke via videoconference with Metropolitan Theologos of Serres, who, representing the Permanent Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, asked for clarification regarding the new identity cards. Mr. Mitarakis, in his post on the social network, emphasized:

“… we informed them in detail, assuring them that the new identity documents do not contain any data that threatens the freedom of Greek citizens or in any way offends the Christian faith of the Orthodox.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdg3wSkMaWk



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