International Courant
Athens, Greece – Far-right activists and neo-Nazi organizations in Greece not too long ago known as for a pan-European monument in Athens to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the assassination of two members of the self-styled Nazi group, Golden Daybreak.
On November 1, 2013, Manolis Kapelonis and Giorgos Fountoulis – each of their 20s – have been fatally shot in a drive-by assault outdoors the get together’s workplaces, in obvious revenge for the homicide weeks earlier of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas. by a Golden Daybreak member.
In response to this week’s name, dozens of anti-fascist teams organized counter-protests at close by metro stations and squares.
A couple of days earlier than these occasions, which have been scheduled for Wednesday, the Common Police Directorate of Attica issued a 24-hour ban on all open-air public gatherings.
The scenario intensified on Tuesday night, when 21 members of the Italian neo-fascist group Casa Pound have been arrested upon arrival at Athens airport and charged for deportation.
Anti-fascist Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas, often called Killah P, was murdered in 2013 (File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA-EFE)
On the appointed night, a way of chaos broke out in some components of the Greek capital.
At two totally different metro stations in Athens, a whole lot of anti-fascist protesters have been held in static positions by strains of riot police.
On the small marble Golden Daybreak memorial, supporters handed strains of police, left flowers or took selfies.
Later, anti-authoritarian protesters clashed with police at one other metro station.
On the central Monastiraki metro station, a gaggle of neo-Nazis attacked counter-protesters in a hut.
Movies posted on-line present far-right activists beating folks with belts and steel plates, and later dousing them with what seems to be gasoline, threatening: “We are going to burn you alive.”
No fireplace broke out, however a number of folks have been taken to hospital with accidents.
Though Golden Daybreak was formally thought of a prison group in 2020, this week’s spectacle was proof that Golden Daybreak’s beliefs and supporters haven’t disappeared and that the far proper in Greece is reorganizing.
“It’s clear that with the condemnation of Golden Daybreak we aren’t performed with the far proper in Greece,” Kostis Papaioannou, a member of the monitoring community Level for the Examine and Countering of the Far Proper, instructed Al Jazeera.
“The primary components that gas the far proper live on and there may be additionally mainstreaming of the far proper, of far proper concepts, each by way of mainstream information and sadly by way of political events.”
From political energy to prison group
Within the 2000s, Golden Daybreak was a central and highly effective power in Greek politics.
The get together took on a populist attraction, arguing that solely their model of fervent nationalism may ease the nation’s devastating financial issues.
They constructed assist in troubled neighborhoods throughout Greece and received 7 % of the seats within the Greek parliament in 2012.
Throughout this era, the group bastioned their arguments by power.
They repeatedly despatched members on evening patrols to beat and kill refugees and migrants – and generally left-wingers – usually with impunity.
In 2013, Gouden Dageraad organized the coordinated homicide of Fyssas, the favored anti-fascist rapper; a number of get together leaders have been later arrested.
In 2020, after years of trial proceedings, Gouden Dageraad was discovered responsible of a number of assaults on migrants and refugees, and commerce unionists, in addition to the homicide of rapper Pavlos Fyssas.
After Golden Daybreak was criminalized, it was largely banned from partaking with political organizations, however its former leaders have continued to marketing campaign for political workplace from jail, members have shifted their assist to different far-right organizations and their violent strategies have been glorified and mentioned. .
Ilias Kasidiaris, a Golden Daybreak chief with a swastika tattoo who was jailed in 2021, based the nationalist Hellenes get together simply earlier than beginning his 13.5-year sentence in Domokos jail.
The get together was excluded from this yr’s parliamentary elections as a consequence of Kasidiaris’ prison report.
However the 42-year-old, very energetic on YouTube and
The get together’s chief, Vasilis Stigkas, has earlier ties to Golden Daybreak and several other different neo-Nazi organizations in Greece.
Two different far-right political events additionally received seats on this yr’s elections: the ultranationalist Greek Resolution and the Christian conservative Victory.
All collectively, these far-right events now make up 16 % of parliament, making the present authorities essentially the most far-right parliament in Greece because the fall of the navy dictatorship in 1974.
Violence on the road
Outdoors of get together politics, Gouden Dageraad’s use of road violence has additionally been replicated and imitated.
In the course of this yr, as fires raged within the northern Greek area of Evros, a person broadcast on social media an extrajudicial kidnapping of refugees and migrants in Evros, whom he blamed for the fires. This video was shared by the chief of Greek Resolution.
On August 12, a younger Pakistani man, Sizar Saftar, was murdered, in what the motion United In opposition to Racism and the Fascist Menace has recognized as a racist killing, though it stays unclear who the perpetrators have been.
In current weeks, far-right youth teams round Athens have introduced their nightly patrols, spraying nationalist and racist slogans in a number of neighborhoods.
Papaioannou stated there was a rise in road assaults not too long ago.
“After the conviction of Golden Daybreak in 2020, there was a lower within the presence of this violence from racist neo-Nazi teams on the streets,” he stated.
“Nevertheless, there have been some performances round faculties within the north of Greece and in Athens. And there may be now a reactivation of some of these teams and violent assaults.”
Magda Skoutzou, head of a mother and father’ affiliation in Athens, stated “fascist” teams are “appearing unhindered.”
On the finish of the earlier college yr, she added, far-right activists stabbed two 15-year-olds in her neighborhood.
Skoutzou stood along with different mother and father and teams within the anti-fascist camp on November 1 and though they’d an argument with the police, they weren’t allowed to proceed their demonstration.
“I imagine it’s my responsibility to be right here in the present day,” Skoutzou stated. “To emphasise that we are not looking for fascist teams to have any house in our neighborhoods and faculties.”
Consultants on Greece’s far proper notice that, regardless of their extra seen presence, these assault teams are nowhere close to as organized or as robust as they have been through the heyday of the Golden Daybreak.
“The teams we have now now – Propatria, or for instance the Golden Daybreak Youth Entrance, which is actually a gaggle in Thessaloniki – are very small teams attempting to recapture the thread of the outdated to do the identical factor, however it’s working not,” says Dimitris Psarras, a journalist who has reported on Gouden Dageraad since its founding.
“They imitate (Golden Daybreak) however have neither the facility nor the attraction.”
Psarras stated these neo-Nazi teams function in another way than Golden Daybreak’s complete top-down method.
“The teams that are actually doing far-right politics, like Velopoulos (Greek answer) in parliament, and even the Spartans, wish to give the impression on the floor that they’re solely political activists, they aren’t taking every other actions. ” he stated.
“It’s as if the Golden Daybreak has break up into the political and navy branches that was collectively and have now break up, though connections and contacts definitely stay amongst them.”
After the demise of Golden Daybreak, a harmful new excessive proper is flourishing in Greece | The far-right information
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