Page 288 - Beholding Liberty!

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Report of the Governor to the Senate about the freedom of press (Nafplio, 30 March 1831) Archives of the Greek Regeneration, vol. 21, no 125 [pp. 110-111]
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KAPODISTRIAS transfers to the Senate a plan of Regulations for the entrenchment of the free- dom of press and the prevention of aberrations, men- tioning that for its drafting he took into consideration the «codes of nations», namely the relevant «interna- tional bibliography». He stresses that he deems the pre-examination, that is, the preventive censorship, as incompatible with the freedom of Press.
The issue of free circulation of ideas via the press had
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already been provided for in the Provisional Regime of Greece of 1822, as this was revised in the Constitution of Astros during the 2nd National Assembly in 1823.
Emblematic is also the phrase of Jeremy Bentham «Publication is the soul of justice», which was print- ed on the issue of the Greek Chronicles of the 19th January 1824, summing up on the part of the Greeks the perception of the freedom of press as funda- mental constitutional right.
288 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
Greek Chronicles, issue 104, pp. 2-3 (24 December 1824) Information of the citizens about the local assemblies
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IMPORTANT FOR INFORMING the citizens on the activities performed in the central po- litical scene is also the contribution of the revolution- ary press: in this case, the presented here article con- cerns the assembly of Western Continental Greece, on 17 December 1824, with analytical listing of the
participants and the agenda. Moreover, in the news- papers of the time, there are systematically published decisions of the Administration, but also interpretive approaches, such as the «explanation of the political system of the Greeks » by Theodoros Negris (Εφημερίς Αθηνών, issues 23-33, 19.11.1824-24.12.1824).