Photo of the Day: Greek Health Minister Smoking (!)… Inside the Ministry of Health (!!) During Press Conference Goes Viral— And It’s World No Tobacco Day(!!!)

May 31st is World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), intended to encourage a 24-hour period of abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption around the globe. It was created by the World Health Organization back in 1987.

But today, a photograph that began circulating in Greek Twitterdom yesterday continues to go viral and is now spreading abroad, portraying Greece’s deputy Health Minister Pavlos Polakis firing up a cigarette INSIDE the Ministry of Health headquarters in what appears to be a press conference.

Greece’s alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis

Numerous opposition politicians took to Twitter to slam the Syriza minister’s disregard for Greece’s anti-smoking laws which the alternate minister is supposed to be enforcing.

Numerous newspapers and blogs in Greece ridiculed the hypocrisy of a professional surgeon who heads up an important post in government blatantly flaunting a lit cigarette inside a government building— and the Ministry of Health nonetheless.

Γελοίος υπ. υγείας Πολακης φουμάρει σε υπουργείο-ο Κατρούγκαλος λέει ομως οτι μπορουμε χωρίς τσιγάρο #παραιτηθειτε pic.twitter.com/CppZVjYJ3z

— Ανδρέας Ψυχάρης (@APsycharis) May 30, 2016

Ο άνθρωπος αυτός ειναι επιφορτισμένος με την εφαρμογή της Αντικαπνιστικής Νομοθεσίας…σε ποια Χώρα θα στεκόταν; pic.twitter.com/zYhVHn5VdW

— Άδωνις Γεωργιάδης (@AdonisGeorgiadi) May 30, 2016

Ο αναπληρωτής υπουργός Υγείας παραβιάζει το νόμο του υπουργείου Υγείας https://t.co/YMJ1qDmZZt pic.twitter.com/0rMg2h2ROX

— SKAI.gr (@skaigr) May 30, 2016