Emmanouil Glezos

Emmanouil Glezos was born in Naxos in 1922. He is a Greek politician and writer.

Political Career

After the restoration of democracy in Greece in 1974, Glezos participated in the reviving of the EDA. In the elections of 1981 and 1985, he was elected as a Member of the Greek Parliament, as a member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). In 1984 he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament. He was the President of EDA from 1985 until 1989. In the meantime, in 1986, he withdrew from the Parliament, in order to try to implement a grassroots democracy experiment. He did so in the community of Aperathu, where he was elected as the President of the Community Council in the 1986 elections. He then essentially abolished the privileges of the council, introducing a "constitution" and established a local assembly that had total control over the community administration. This model worked for several years, but in the long term the interest of the rest of his community wore off and the assembly was abandoned. Glezos remained the President until 1989. In the Greek legislative election of 2000 he led the Synaspismos party of the radical left. In 2002, he formed the political group Active Citizens (which is part of Coalition of the Radical Left, an alliance with Synaspismos and other minor parties of the Greek left) and he ran as a candidate for Attica. In March 2010, Glezos was participating in a protest demonstration in Athens, when he was hit in the face by a police tear gas canister. He was carried away injured. In February 2012, Glezos was arrested by riot police while protesting in Athens. He was sprayed with teargas by one of the police officers in that area. In the June 2012 parliamentary election, he was elected as MP of the Coalition of Radical Left (SYRIZA). He was a SYRIZA candidate for the European Parliament in the elections of 25 May 2014. He was elected to the European Parliament. He was also the oldest person elected to the European Parliament in the 2014 election.

Education Career

He was studied at the Higher School of Economic and Commercial Studies (known today as the Athens University of Economics and Business) in 1940.

Notable Work

During the Axis occupation of Greece, he worked for the Hellenic Red Cross and the municipality of Athens, while actively involved in the resistance. On May 30, 1941, he and Apostolos Santas climbed on to the Acropolis and tore down the swastika, which had been there since April 27, 1941, when the Nazi forces had entered Athens. It inspired not only the Greeks, but all subjected people, to resist against the occupation, and established them both as two international anti-Nazi heroes. The Nazi regime responded by sentencing Glezos and Santas to death in absentia. Glezos was arrested by the German occupation forces on March 24, 1942, and was subjected to imprisonment and torture. As a result of this treatment, he contracted tuberculosis. He was arrested on April 21, 1943 by the Italian occupation forces and spent three months in jail. On February 7, 1944 he was arrested again, this time by Greek Nazi collaborators. He spent another seven and a half months in jail, until he finally escaped on September 21 of the same year.