virus: Computer games illegal in Greece

From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Thu Sep 05 2002 - 08:50:32 MDT


This is not an ethnic joke.
... or is it?

Act I (May 2002)

Computer games illegal in Greece
KATHIMERINI English Edition
Date: 5-30-2002

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=17011

On-line chess banned from Internet cafes?
Three months after promising to instantly outlaw all electronic games from the public domain in the wake of a heated public debate on widespread illegal gambling, the government tabled a bill to that effect in Parliament yesterday.

The draft law, presented by the Economy and Finance Ministry, bans any form of "electric, electro-mechanical and electronic" game devices, including computers, from hotels, coffee shops, club premises and public areas in general. This will not apply to Internet cafes, which, however, will not be allowed to offer their clients computer games.

The police will be responsible for catching offenders, who will face fines of 5,000 to 75,000 euros and imprisonment of one to 12 months.

The blanket ban was decided in February after the government admitted it was incapable of distinguishing innocuous video games from illegal gambling machines.

Act II (September 2002)

Greek govt bans all computer games
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 03/09/2002 at 16:45 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26939.html

The government of Greece is making heroic efforts to humiliate the nation in front of the entire world, by banning all electronic games. That's right; something as innocent as playing computer chess on your laptop in a hotel lobby is now a crime with penalties of up to three months in stir and a fine of 10,000 euros.

The purpose behind this charming legislation is to crack down on Internet gambling (which already was illegal) -- or, rather, to enable legislators to enact their little public dance of righteous aversion to Internet gambling.

Improved enforcement of existing law is all that was needed, but there's a problem. Unfortunately, the Greek government is "incapable of distinguishing innocuous video games from illegal gambling machines," according to an older article from the English-language Kathimerini newspaper, written while the bill was under consideration.

Now it's official. The legislature has concluded that all electronic games have got to go because the bureaucrats they're maintaining on the public payroll aren't swift enough to figure out the difference between video poker and TuXkart. Perhaps enforcing literacy requirements and sobriety regulations for government workers would have been a more productive approach, but it's too late for that now.

[rhinoceros]
Several owners of "Internet Cafes" have already been arrested, and their trade unions are reacting by reporting various government services to the procurator because they have Minesweeper and Solitaire installed with Windows in their computers.

----
This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS.
<http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26387>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Sep 22 2002 - 05:06:21 MDT