The leftist Greek government said on Monday it would soon present a bill targeting “racist hate speech”, part of a crackdown on the Golden Dawn party after an anti-fascist rapper died.
“(The bill) will be submitted to parliament in a matter of days. It has symbolic and moral value,” Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters, adding that it would align Greek legislation with European standards.
Greece’s ruling coalition had been at loggerheads over whether it needed a new anti-racism law to deal with inflammatory talk used by Golden Dawn.
Venizelos’s Socialist PASOK party had pushed for a new law, while the main ruling conservative party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had argued that current legislation was enough.
But the murder of rapper Pavlos Fissas on September 17 by a suspected Golden Dawn supporter prompted a crackdown on Greece’s third-most popular party, whose fierce anti-immigrant rhetoric has attracted support amid a severe economic crisis.
Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos and four other party lawmakers are due to appear in court this week to respond to charges of forming a criminal organization.
The government is also preparing another law that would suspend Golden Dawn’s state funding on the grounds that its leadership is facing prosecution on felony charges.
“Democracy can’t fund its opponents,” Venizelos said.
Prosecutors are investigating the party for links to about 30 violent attacks, including the killing of the rapper and a Pakistani immigrant.
The party has denied any connection to the rapper’s death and also rejects the neo-Nazi label.
An outright ban of a political party is difficult under Greek law. The government plans instead to undermine Golden Dawn by cutting its money flows and dismantling its leadership.
A protestor outside police headquarters in Athens holds a placard stating: ‘Listen chief, listen again, you have ridiculed the system one more time – Golden Dawn of the Greeks’
Golden Dawn, the aggressive Greek right-wing party making headlines in the crisis-hit country after the murder of an anti-fascist musician, has gone from provocation to provocation in its short career in Greece’s parliament.
The party’s 18 lawmakers have been accused of using their parliamentary immunity to intimidate police and evade arrest, meaning that there are only a few cases of solid prosecution against them.
Until the murder of hip hop artist Pavlos Fyssas on Wednesday, police had failed to pursue most other cases of brazen aggression by suspected Golden Dawn members against migrants or political rivals.
– June 7, 2012: Golden Dawn party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, a former commando, strikes female Communist MP Liana Kanelli during a heated talk show debate. He escapes arrest by temporarily going into hiding. Parliament later lifts his immunity so Kasidiaris can face trial.
– June 12, 2012: Four Egyptian fishermen are attacked in their sleep in the working-class district of Perama by a gang of black-clad attackers. One victim is hospitalised with serious head injuries.
Six people arrested at the time denied involvement and were released. According to media reports, at least one of the assailants would take part in another beating of Communist party members in Perama a year later.
– September 7, 2012: Golden Dawn lawmakers George Germenis and Panagiotis Iliopoulos lead a black-clad detachment of party members to an open-air fair near Athens, where they proceed to smash the stalls of unlicensed migrant peddlers.
Another GD team headed by lawmaker Costas Barbaroussis carries out a similar operation in the western town of Messolonghi the following day.
Parliament has agreed to lift the immunity of all three MPs so they can be prosecuted.
– January 17, 2013: A Pakistani migrant is fatally stabbed in central Athens by two Greeks, one of them a fireman. Police later find Golden Dawn tracts at the one of the attackers’ homes.
– May 2, 2013: Athens Mayor George Kaminis bans a Golden Dawn food handout exclusively catering to Greeks as racist. Hours later, GD lawmaker George Germenis is detained after apparently trying to punch the mayor, and hitting a 12-year-old girl instead. Germenis’ immunity has again been lifted over the assault and he will be tried.
– September 12, 2013: Communists putting up posters in the working-class district of Perama are attacked by a large group of alleged Golden Dawn members bearing nail-studded clubs. Eight Communists are hospitalised but the attackers escape.
– September 18, 2013: Anti-fascist singer Pavlos Fyssas is fatally stabbed after an apparent ambush by suspected Golden Dawn members. The killer, George Roupakias, is immediately arrested and later confesses to police his Golden Dawn affiliation.
Golden Dawn continues to deny involvement and accuses its critics of slander, but pictures soon appear in the press, showing Roupakias participating in party events, wearing GD insignia. – AFP
Arrested: Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of Golden Dawn
by Hélène COLLIOPOULOU
Greek police on Saturday swooped on the Golden Dawn party, arresting its leadership and hunting for dozens of members across the country in a crackdown sparked by the murder of a leftist musician.
The arrests came a day after Golden Dawn threatened to pull its lawmakers out of parliament, a move that could spark a political crisis in the recession-hit country.
The party urged its followers to demonstrate against what it called an “illegal decision” on Saturday and by late morning several hundred faithful had gathered in front police headquarters in Athens.
In dawn raids, Greek anti-terror police arrested party leader Nikos Michaloliakos along with party spokesman and MP Ilias Kassidiairis, two other lawmakers and a dozen party members, police said.
The charges against them ranged from belonging to a “criminal organisation” to murder and assault, according to a source in the justice ministry.
The police sweep came after the country’s supreme court, which has been charged with investigating the group, issued arrest warrants for some 30 members.
Golden Dawn has faced a crackdown after a self-confessed neo-Nazi fatally stabbed popular hip-hop musician Pavlos Fyssas, 34, on September 18, a killing that sparked nationwide protests.
The party currently has 18 lawmakers in parliament and prior to the murder was the third most popular political grouping in the country.
“This government is determined not to allow the descendants of the Nazis to poison our social life, to commit crimes, terrorise and undermine the foundations of the country that gave birth to democracy,” Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned in a televised address a day after the killing.
Golden Dawn leader Michaloliakos has threatened to pull the group’s deputies out of parliament, a move that would prompt by-elections in 15 regions around the country.
“We will exhaust any means within our legal constitutional rights to defend our political honour,” Michaloliakos told reporters late on Thursday.
“If the country enters a cycle of instability, it is those who demonise Golden Dawn who will be responsible, not (us),” he said.
By-elections could hurt Samaras’s coalition government, which has a slim majority of 155 MPs in the 300-seat parliament, and could cast into doubt Greece’s ability to fulfil its obligations to creditors on multi-billion-euro bailouts.
Samaras’s conservative party is neck-and-neck in the polls with the radical leftist Syriza party that opposes Greece’s EU-IMF austerity bailout, and a strong showing by Syriza in by-elections could lead to the government’s fall.
Formerly on the fringe of Greek politics, Golden Dawn’s popularity has skyrocketed as it tapped into widespread anger over unpopular reforms in a country that is currently slogging through its sixth year of recession and where unemployment among the youth stands at a staggering 60 percent.
It went from 19,000 votes a few years ago to over 426,000 in June 2012 elections after pledging to “scour the country” clean of illegal immigrants.
The party, whose leader has denied the Holocaust, has sent black-clad squads to smash market stalls owned by migrants, held torch-lit rallies lambasting political opponents as “traitors” and “thieves”, and organised food donations exclusively for ethnic Greeks.
It has also been blamed for a series of brutal attacks on migrants and political opponents, though it strenuously denies any responsibility and claims to be the victim of slander.
This year, the party has consistently polled at over 10 percent, with its approval ratings even higher in the 18-44 age group, making them the country’s third-strongest political force.
Although the hip-hop artist’s murder has led to a dip in those ratings, analysts warn that the party’s popularity will make any efforts to outlaw it difficult and politically dangerous.
“The constitution makes no provision for the dissolution of a parliamentary group, even it there is proof that it is a criminal organisation,” Dimitris Christopoulos, an associate professor of law at Athens’ Panteion University, told AFP this week. – AFP
Thousands of Greeks took to the streets of Athens to protest against far-right extremism on Thursday, a day after police and demonstrators clashed in cities across the country following the murder of an anti-fascist singer.
Around 4,000 people marched in the capital’s western Keratsini district, where Wednesday’s murder occurred, carrying banners that said “stop fascism” and “no pasaran” (“they shall not pass”), an AFP reporter saw.
The protesters, mostly trade union members, shouted slogans including “out with fascists” and “workers do not fear threats”.
Greece has been rocked by unrest since popular hip hop artist Pavlos Fyssas, who wrote music under the nickname Killah P, was stabbed to death early on Wednesday by 45-year-old truck driver George Roupakias, who has allegedly confessed to police and is said to be a supporter of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.
Thousands of Greeks took to the streets in anti-fascist marches in cities across the country on Wednesday. Scuffles broke out in some areas, with police firing tear gas at groups of demonstrators in Athens, the northern city of Thessaloniki and the western city of Patras.
Golden Dawn has denied links with the killer, but pictures have surfaced of Roupakias participating in party activities, and reports said members of his family worked for the organisation.
In a televised address earlier on Thursday, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras vowed to rein in the Golden Dawn party.
“This government is determined not to allow the descendants of the Nazis to poison our social life, to commit crimes, terrorise and undermine the foundations of the country that gave birth to democracy,” he said.
Experts have argued that current legislation would make it difficult to slap an outright ban on Golden Dawn, but government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said steps will be taken to expose the group’s “criminal” acts and isolate it. – AFP
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
