More than 20 members of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn were arrested in late September. This unprecedented crackdown on the far right followed public outrage at the murder of the anti-fascist musician Pavlos Fyssas, known as Killah P, by a self-proclaimed Golden Dawn member. [...]The public prosecutor’s report links Golden Dawn to multiple offences, including trafficking, kidnapping, money laundering and extortion, but the main charges remain those of multiple accounts of murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault. The prosecutor argues that the party’s strict, almost military structure strongly suggests that every hit was carried out as a result of orders from higher up.[...]In Athens people are feeling pessimistic. This is for two reasons. On the one hand, two Golden Dawn MPs, Kasidiaris and Panagiotaros, were released on bail, a first for anyone charged with helping to lead a criminal organisation. As Anny Paparousou, a Greek lawyer with expertise in the field, told me, “This will definitely shift the weight of the trial to their favour when the time comes, as they will walk in as free men.”[...]On the other hand, Chrysanthos Lazaridis, a senior adviser to the prime minister, has stated that Golden Dawn and Greece’s leading left-wing party, Syriza, are “the same thing”, hinting that leftists and anarchists will face persecution, too.Elsewhere in Europe, as in Greece, the best bet for defeating far-right extremism will be to deal not only with openly fascist groups but also with those that paved the way for parties such as Golden Dawn by legitimising hellish detention camps for immigrants, by prosecuting activists in Skouries simply for opposing the destruction of their natural environment, and by adopting racist rhetoric to try to win back right-wing voters.Whatever the crackdown against Golden Dawn means for Greece, the hope is now rekindled that the EU might be starting to see the rise of the far right as the threat that it is.It is shameful that the Greek government and the European leadership have pretended they didn’t know what was happening. Now, they have run out of excuses.
Since Mr Samaras became Prime Minister the city has been subjected to the police operation “Xenios Zeus”. Since its inauguration in August 2012, the operation has seen the detention of over 80.000 migrants, the vast majority having broken no law according to police press releases. Eventually, most of the innocent migrants have been released with the exception of around 5.000 who were imprisoned, mostly due to lack of documents, in new detention centers built across the debt-ridden country.Targeting a substantial proportion of the population of Greek cities simply due to their skin color marks the adoption of Golden Dawn’s agenda by Mr Samaras’ government. Golden Dawn claims that migrants are dangerous and Mr Samaras’ New Democracy (ND) has followed this logic, detaining innocent migrants in the thousands. In his pre-election campaign, Mr Samaras claimed that illegal migrants have become “the tyrants of society” and that Greeks subsequently have to “liberate our cities from illegal migrants”, once again repeating the Golden Dawn rhetoric.Mr Samaras’ party in May 2013 made a gift to Golden Dawn by blocking the anti-racist bill, which would criminalize racism and the denial of the Holocaust. Golden Dawn on the other hand provided aid to Mr Samaras’ government on at least two debatable decisions since June 2012: first, when the government shut down overnight the Public Television, and second when it applied further tax exceptions to the Greek ship-owning companies.
[...]Mr Samaras might portray himself as a combatant against the extremism of Golden Dawn. But how, then, can he explain the very strong ideological and practical links between his own party’s rhetoric and policies, and those of the neo-Nazis?
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