This week, a sizable crowd of Andrew Tate supporters gathered in Athens to show their solidarity with him as he faces inquiries into charges of rape and human trafficking.
This week, videos of the demonstration were shared on social media and received millions of views. The videos showed a sizable crowd, mostly made up of young guys, pumping their fists while yelling, “Free top G! Free top G!”
Tate and his supporters have made the term “top G,” which stands for “top gangster,” commonplace for anyone they consider to be deserving.
The Greek Reporter claims that demonstrators flooded into the nation’s capital’s Syntagma Square and along Ermou Street’s shopping area. People can be seen holding up posters and pleading for Tate’s release from prison in several videos.
The demonstration appears to be a direct reaction to the continuing investigation into Tate and his brother Tristan Tate by the Romanian government. Authorities in Romania detained the pair in December on charges of rape and human trafficking. The brothers’ most recent request for parole was denied, therefore they will now be held in custody for 30 days while the inquiry is conducted.
Tate has kept updating his 4.6 million followers on Twitter while the probe is ongoing. He has repeatedly made conspiratorial and irrational assertions that he is being held captive by “the Matrix”—a word Tate and his audience use to refer to the film series—and that its “agents” are out to get him. (Eugen Vidineac, Tate’s attorney, has even refuted these allegations.)
Andrew, Tristan, and two other men are being looked into by the Romanian government on suspicion of setting up a scheme to exploit and coerce women into creating content for an internet porn website.
According to a lawyer, Tate’s main legal obstacle will be his previous public pronouncements about rape and exploitation. Tate vented on Twitter in October 2017 about the women who had accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. If the ladies “placed [themselves] in a position to be raped,” he claimed, they could hardly claim to be victims. Over the years, Tate has spoken a great deal of offensive and misogynistic things.
In his most recent tweet, posted on Wednesday, Tate said that he would be giving one of his five visitation slots to Adin Ross, a well-known streamer who immediately defended Tate when he was detained.
