by Marios Dimopoulos.

“There is no right to self-determination in Albania,” he claims, “and no genuine religious freedom!”

As if it weren’t enough that Albania allows Fredi Beleris to hold forth all day long on Albanian television channels—instead of locking him up for good or declaring him persona non grata—this provocateur has been exposed by Documento (in an article titled “Beleris, MAVH, and the Kalashnikovs”) and by I Michani tou Chronou (in a piece titled “The Forgotten Arrest of Beleris in 1995 at the Greek-Albanian Border”).

Regarding the “arsenal found in the car” and the accusations of being “nationalist provocateurs”—he was arrested on March 19, 1995, near Delvinaki, Ioannina, by Greek border guards. Those arrested were initially charged with felonies—specifically, forming a criminal gang and the illegal possession and transport of military-grade weapons.

However, the Athens Court of Appeals (1999) downgraded the charges to misdemeanors, and Fredi Beleri was ultimately sentenced to a term of imprisonment (which could be commuted to a fine or served under a suspended sentence) for the offense of illegal possession of weapons.

Beleri speaks of a lack of the right to self-identification—yet in Albania, anyone can declare whatever identity they choose and speak whatever language they wish (Albania recognizes national and linguistic minorities; for instance, I, as a Greek, can speak Greek, a Vlach can speak Vlach, a Slav can speak a Slavic language, and so on). Meanwhile, in Greece, we used to beat anyone who spoke other languages ​​with a rod, and we do not, for example, grant a Slavic-speaking Macedonian the right to self-identification.

He speaks of a lack of genuine religious freedom in Albania—yet Albania is the only Balkan state that was not founded on religion, but rather on clans (lineage) and language—meaning that anyone who spoke Albanian and belonged to Albanian clans was considered Albanian—whereas Greece was a religiously fundamentalist state based exclusively on religion, where one could only be Greek if one believed in Christ and was an Orthodox Christian.

This culminated in the military junta’s slogan, “Greece of Greek Christians,” which implied that anyone who was not Orthodox—whether belonging to another Christian denomination, or being Muslim, atheist, agnostic, a follower of the ancient religion, etc.—was considered inferior, “lesser,” and not truly Greek.

Consequently, Muslims of Greek origin in Thrace ceased to identify as Greek and began to identify as Turks. This led to the tragic events involving the Muslim Chams (whose lives had been made difficult by the Greek state precisely because of their religion—though the Greeks bear sole responsibility for the actions of a minority among the Chams).

Furthermore, when the population exchange took place—organized along religious lines—we forcibly expelled thousands of Muslims of Greek origin, only to bring in Christians of indeterminate ethnic background from Turkey.

And Greece is one of the very few European states that has not separated church and state—yet Beleri goes on television and proclaims that there is no religious freedom in Albania, while implying that such freedom supposedly exists in Greece. Lay off the expired stuff, Beleri.