Rise of Greece’s Golden Dawn: A Presage of Doom

JEWISH JOURNAL: The undisguised extremism promoted by Golden Dawn is a chilling watershed in Greece’s post[-]war democracy. Fascist gangs are turning Athens into a city of shifting front lines, seizing on crimes and local protests to promote their own movement, by claiming to be the defenders of recession-ravaged Greece.

The People’s Association – Golden Dawn — usually referred to simply as Golden Dawn — is a right-wing extremist political organization in Greece. It is led by Nikolaos Michaloliakos, and has grown considerably since its inception to a widely known Greek political party with nationwide support.

Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party is gaining popularity in the midst of the country’s deepening financial crisis. The group has been implicated in torture cases, and for inciting a wave of racial violence sweeping the country.

An opinion poll published by KAPA Research in October showed that support for the extremist political group had grown from 7.5 percent of the population in June to 10.4 percent currently.

The Golden Dawn emerged from political obscurity into the mainstream in May after winning 7 percent of the vote in the Greek parliamentary elections. Since then, the country has reportedly witnessed an upsurge in racial violence connected to the right-wing group.

The party entered the international spotlight after some of its members reportedly participated in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims. Its publication praises the Third Reich and often features photographs of Hitler and other Nazis.

Golden Dawn has manipulated a weak Greek state and disastrous austerity management by European bureaucrats to become, according to recent polls, the third-most popular political party in the country — a noxious omen for the eurozone and a worrying challenge and counterpoint to the very idea of the European Union itself, which received last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. » | Hatef Mokhtar | Thursday, March 14, 2013

HARDtalk: Nikos Dendias - Minister for Public Order, Greece

HARDtalk speaks to Nikos Dendias, Greece's minister for public order. He believes Greece has become the gateway to Europe, with 90 per cent of all illegal immigrants to the EU.
Watch the programme on BBC iPlayer here | Monday, July 08, 2013

Support for Greece's Golden Dawn Rises

Read the article The Spectre of Fascism in Greece here | Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Related »

New Dark Age Alert! Thug Politics - Greece

Related »

Greece’s Muslims Cite “Slaughter” Threat
GREEK REPORTER: The Muslim Association of Greece (MAG) said that it has received a threatening note giving all Muslims, Greeks and foreigners, one month’s time to evacuate the country or be “slaughtered like chickens,” according to a statement released by the association on May 18.

The note, published on the association’s webpage, is written in Greek, English and Arabic and the Golden Dawn emblem is printed on the paper, although there is no claim of responsibility from the neo-Nazi group that has 18 seats in Parliament, wants all immigrants out of Greece and has been accused of assaults on them, which the party has denied.

The note is printed over a symbol of Golden Dawn which has an openly anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-foreigner, ultra-religious jingoistic platform and says it wants a Greece populated only by Greeks with 100 percent Greek blood from both parents. » | Andy Dabilis | Saturday, May 18, 2013

Below is the content of the note, expurgated.

Muslim Murderers

Until June 30 you shut your bordela in Greece and you will go to hell.

From July 1 onwards those who are still here will [be] slaughtered like chickens on the road.

Islam F*** you, f*** you and the Koran f***ing your mothers.

There will be blood.

Golden Dawn's 'Greeks Only' Soup Kitchen Ends In Chaos
An attempt by members of Greece's far-Right, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn political party to hand out emergency food rations to Greeks only was broken up by police firing tear gas on Thursday.

Read The Daily Telegraph article here | Nick Squires | Thursday, May 02, 2013

'Like 1930s Germany': Greek Far Right Gains Ground

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL – EXTRACT: Right-wing thugs have been spreading fear and terror in Greece for months. The worse the financial crisis gets and the harsher the budget cuts imposed by European creditors are, the worse the terror gets on the streets. Foreigners have been attacked, homosexuals chased and leftists assaulted. Some were beaten to death. There are parts of Athens in which refugees and minorities no longer dare to go out alone at night, and streets that are echoingly empty. Foreign merchants have had to close their doors, while journalists and politicians who criticize these developments receive threats or beatings.

Ta Nea, a leading Greek daily, has described conditions here as similar to those of Weimar Germany. Vassiliki Georgiadou, a political science professor in Athens, likewise calls it "an atmosphere like in the 1930s in Germany against the Jews and their businesses."

As recently as Greece's October 2009 parliamentary election, Golden Dawn garnered just 0.29 percent of votes. But in the early election held last May, as well as in the subsequent new election in June, the right-wing extremist party suddenly received almost 7 percent of votes, securing 18 seats in the country's parliament. Read it all » | Manfred Ertel in Athens | Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein | Thursday, April 18, 2013

Greece's Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Goes Global with Political Ambitions
THE GUARDIAN: Buoyed by its meteoric domestic success, the far right party is planning to expand 'wherever there are Greeks'


Emboldened by its meteoric rise in Greece, the far-right Golden Dawn party is spreading its tentacles abroad, amid fears it is acting on its pledge to "create cells in every corner of the world". The extremist group, which forged links with British neo-Nazis when it was founded in the 1980s, has begun opening offices in Germany, Australia, Canada and the US.

The international push follows successive polls that show Golden Dawn entrenching its position as Greece's third, and fastest growing, political force. First catapulted into parliament with 18 MPs last year, the ultra-nationalists captured 11.5% support in a recent survey conducted by polling company Public Issue.

The group – whose logo resembles the swastika and whose members are prone to give Nazi salutes – has gone from strength to strength, promoting itself as the only force willing to take on the "rotten establishment". Amid rumours of backing from wealthy shipowners, it has succeeded in opening party offices across Greece.

It is also concentrating on spreading internationally, with news last month that it had opened an office in Germany and planned to set up branches in Australia. The party's spokesman, Ilias Kasidiaris, said it had decided to establish cells "wherever there are Greeks".

"People have understood that Chrysi Avgi [Golden Dawn] tells the truth," he told a Greek-language paper in Melbourne. "In our immediate sights and aims is the creation of an office and local organisation in Melbourne. In fact, very soon a visit of MPs to Australia is planned." » | Helena Smith in Athens | Monday, April 01, 2013

Return of the Far Right: Greece's Financial Crisis Has Led to a Rise in Violent Attacks on Refugees
THE INDEPENDENT: John Carlin reports from Athens on the return of the far right.

An Afghan who fled his country, fearing a lynching, after converting from Islam to Christianity. A Syrian who bolted across the border after a bomb destroyed his home. A Sudanese man who ran for his life after soldiers murdered his father and raped his sisters.

All three have joined the rivers of refugees that flow, now as ever, from the most wretched corners of the earth, converging today on Athens, the most wretched capital in Western Europe. Pursuing the European dream, they have run aground in the swamp of Greek's economic crisis: undocumented, unwanted, despised, hungry and under constant threat of the sort of violence they imagined they had left behind at home.

The bad guys of this story are not hard to identify. The far-right Golden Dawn party (Chrysi Avgi in Greek) captures votes by using foreign migrants in the same way the Nazis used the Jews: as scapegoats for the frustrations, insecurities and hardships of today's Greek population. They blame Arabs, Asians and Africans (or 'subhumans' as they call them) for their country's dire lot. Accusing them of infecting Greeks with diseases and of turning the centre of Athens into a criminal jungle, young Golden Dawn militants hunt down foreigners in the streets, markets, parks and buses.

The good guys of this story are the NGO workers and Greek volunteers who endeavour to help the refugees. Their altruism is especially impressive: they are also suffering the consequences of the economic crisis, they all know fellow Greeks who are competing with the refugees for food in the bins of Athens. Workers at Médecins Sans Frontières, for example, report Greek people coming to them and asking: "Why don't you help us instead of them? Who invited them, anyway?".

Golden Dawn are the bad guys, but it is not hard to grasp why they are now the third biggest party in the country, well on their way to becoming the second. At a time of awful confusion and uncertainty, they offer simple solutions to complex problems. Linked to neo-Nazi groups in Germany, they have learnt the populist lessons of the Hitler era. They magnify the danger posed by refugees and present themselves as the only true defenders of the people. » | John Carlin | Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Rise of 'Golden Dawn' in Greece - Mini-documentary by The Guardian (English Subtitles)

THE OBSERVER: Film student in UK at heart of Greek neo-Nazi storm: Documentary-maker prompts investigation into Golden Dawn rally racism » | Tracy McVeigh | Sunday, March 24, 2013

Greek Extremists: 'Golden Dawn' Fosters Ties with German Neo-Nazis
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The Greek right-wing extremist party Golden Dawn has established contacts with German neo-Nazis in Bavaria. The group, which is represented in Greek parliament, is also attempting to set up a cell in the southern German state.

The Greek right-wing extremist party Golden Dawn is establishing close contacts with Bavarian neo-Nazis and began setting up a cell in Nuremberg last year. The party, known in Greek as Chrysi Avgi, even held a conference in the southern German city recently.

Bavaria's state intelligence agency is particularly interested in meetings that have been taking place between right-wing extremists from Greece and those in Bavaria.

An umbrella organization of Greek communities in Germany has called on all Greeks in Germany to reject attempts by neo-Nazis to promote "violence, inteolerance and social cannibalism." » | cro/SPIEGEL | Monday, February 04, 2013

Golden Dawn Takes Advantage of Recession Ravaged Greece
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Fascist gangs are turning Athens into a city of shifting front lines, seizing on crimes and local protests to promote their own movement, by claiming to be the defenders of recession ravaged Greece.

Thugs wearing the black T-shirts of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are carrying out attacks on immigrant markets and in public squares, according to the United Nations, with victims speaking of areas in the capital which are now strictly off limits.

Malik Abdulbasset, an Egyptian-born shopkeeper, found himself the target of one of the mobs on Wednesday night after the barber across the road was stabbed during a robbery.

Golden Dawn members led a crowd of enraged locals in a protest on Mikhail Voda St that turned violent despite the presence of riot police.

While no one witnessed the attack on the barber, residents were adamant the assailant was black.

After battering his Egyptian assistant, the mob turned on Mr Abdulbasset, who had defied police to keep his shop open.

"I had to turn and point to my Greek children and my Greek wife and say, look I am Greek, we are Greek, if you want to kill us we cannot stop you but you are killing your own."

The riot police watched on but did not intervene and threats of more protests were pasted on nearby doors. » | Damien McElroy, Athens | Friday, November 02, 2012

Journeyman Pictures: Backlash - Greece

Fear and Loathing in Athens: The Rise of Golden Dawn and the Far Right

THE GUARDIAN: In austerity-ravaged Greece, neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn is on the rise. Their MPs give fascist salutes, while on the streets black-shirted vigilantes beat up immigrants. And some of their most enthusiastic supporters are in the police

You can hear it from blocks away: the deafening beat of Pogrom,Golden Dawn's favourite band, blasting out of huge speakers by a makeshift stage. "Rock for the fatherland, this is our music, we don't want parasites and foreigners on our land…" It's a warm October evening and children on bicycles are riding up and down among the young men with crew cuts, the sleeves of their black T-shirts tight over pumped-up biceps, strolling with the stiff swagger of the muscle-bound. They look relaxed, off-duty. Two of them slap a handshake: "Hey, fascist! How's it going?"

Trestle tables are stacked with Golden Dawn merchandise: black T-shirts bearing the party's name in Greek, Chrysi Avgi, the sigma shaped like the S on SS armbands; mugs with the party symbol, a Greek meander drawn to resemble a swastika; Greek flags and black lanyards, lighters and baseball caps. I lean over to talk to one woman stallholder, dressed in Golden Dawn black with thickly kohl-rimmed eyes, but as soon as she opens her mouth a man in a suit strides up: "What are you writing? Are you a journalist? Tear that page out of your notebook. No, no, you can't talk to anyone."

Tonight is the opening of the Golden Dawn office in Megara, a once prosperous farming town between Athens and Corinth. The Greek national socialist party polled more than 15% here – double the national average – in the June election, when it won 18 seats in parliament. (One was taken up by the former bassist with Pogrom, whose hits include Auschwitz and Speak Greek Or Die.)

Legitimised by democracy and by the media, Golden Dawn is opening branches in towns all over Greece and regularly coming third in national opinion polls. Its black-shirted vigilantes have been beating up immigrants for more than three years, unmolested by the police; lately they've taken to attacking Greeks they suspect of being gay or on the left. MPs participate proudly in the violence. In September, three of them led gangs of black-shirted heavies through street fairs in the towns of Rafina and Messolonghi, smashing up immigrant traders' stalls with Greek flags on thick poles. » | Maria Margaronis | Friday, October 26, 2012

Anti-immigrant Stance Gains Ground in Greece with Golden Dawn

THE INDEPENDENT: At first glance, the shop on a nondescript street in this chaotic capital looks standard-issue military. Fatigues. Camouflage. Hunting gear. Deeper inside, the political message emerges. Black T-shirts emblazoned with modified swastikas — the symbol of the far-right Golden Dawn Party — are on sale. A proudly displayed sticker carries a favorite party slogan: "Get the Stench out of Greece."

By "stench," the Golden Dawn — which won its first-ever seats in the Greek Parliament this spring and whose popularity has soared ever since — means immigrants, broadly defined as anyone not of Greek ancestry. In the country at the epicenter of Europe's debt crisis, and where poverty and unemployment are spiking, the surplus shop doubles as one of the party's dozens of new "help bureaus." Hundreds of calls a day come in from desperate families seeking food, clothing and jobs, all of which the Golden Dawn is endeavoring to provide, with one major caveat: For Greeks only.

To fulfill its promise of a Greece for Greeks alone, the party appears willing to go to great lengths. Its supporters — in some instances with the alleged cooperation of police — stand accused of unleashing a rash of violence since the party rose to national office, including the stabbings and beatings of immigrants, ransacking an immigrant community center, smashing market stalls and breaking the windows of immigrant-owned shops. » | Anthony Faiola, The Washington Post | Athens, Greece | Sunday, October 21, 2012

Greek Police Send Crime Victims to Neo-Nazi 'Protectors'

THE GUARDIAN: Far-right Golden Dawn party filling vacuum for those neglected by state after MPs elected to fight 'immigrant scum'

Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party is increasingly assuming the role of law enforcement officers on the streets of the bankrupt country, with mounting evidence that Athenians are being openly directed by police to seek help from the neo-Nazi group, analysts, activists and lawyers say.

In return, a growing number of Greek crime victims have come to see the party, whose symbol bears an uncanny resemblance to the swastika, as a "protector".

One victim of crime, an eloquent US-trained civil servant, told the Guardian of her family's shock at being referred to the party when her mother recently called the police following an incident involving Albanian immigrants in their downtown apartment block.

"They immediately said if it's an issue with immigrants go to Golden Dawn," said the 38-year-old, who fearing for her job and safety, spoke only on condition of anonymity. "We don't condone Golden Dawn but there is an acute social problem that has come with the breakdown of feeling of security among lower and middle class people in the urban centre," she said. "If the police and official mechanism can't deliver and there is no recourse to justice, then you have to turn to other maverick solutions."

Other Greeks with similar experiences said the far-rightists, catapulted into parliament on a ticket of tackling "immigrant scum" were simply doing the job of a defunct state that had left a growing number feeling overwhelmed by a "sense of powerlessness". "Nature hates vacuums and Golden Dawn is just filling a vacuum that no other party is addressing," one woman lamented. "It gives 'little people' a sense that they can survive, that they are safe in their own homes." » | Helena Smith in Athens | Friday, September 28, 2012

Seeds of Hatred Sprout in Soil of Greek Crisis

Greek Far-right Defies Predictions with Vote Success
REUTERS.COM: The leader of Greece's ultra-right Golden Dawn party savored unexpected success in Sunday's election by taunting journalists and defiantly appearing on camera alongside a party official who went on the run for assaulting a leftist rival.

Hundreds of cheering supporters thronged the party's headquarters in Athens and officials threw ballot papers as confetti from windows after the group defied predictions to once again emerge as among the winners of the night.

"Today's vote proves that the nationalist movement is here to stay," leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos said in a televised message. "Golden Dawn represents the Greece of the future." » | Deepa Babington and Yiorgos Karajalis | ATHENS | Sunday, June 17, 2012

Rise of Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party Leads to Spate of Immigrant Attacks in Greece
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The rise of Greece's far-Right Golden Dawn party has led to a spate of vicious attacks against immigrants that it is feared will only increase after a new election is held on Sunday.

The neo-Nazi group has been blamed for numerous violent incidents since the May 6 vote, when it stunned the whole of Europe by winning 6.97 per cent of the vote and 20 seats in parliament amid deep anxiety about recession, unemployment and high levels of illegal immigration.

Polling data seen by the Daily Telegraph shows that Golden Dawn is on course to perform just as well or even better in the new election, which was called after the first failed to produce a government.

Immigrants groups have said that attacks in Athens have risen in recent weeks, backing up an increase in anecdotal reporting, and fear that once established in parliament the party's black t-shirted vigilantes will feel further emboldened in their campaign of intimidation.

Reza Gholami, the head of association for Afghan immigrants, said: "There are daily beatings. Most incidents are not known because immigrants do not notify authorities. They are afraid for their lives or don't have legal papers or lack the funds to pay the cost of a law suit."

There have been accusations of police bias after it emerged that 50 percent of Athens police officers voted for Golden Dawn. Suspected perpetrators are often arrested but not charged.

In the latest reported attack, a 28-year-old illegal Egyptian immigrant was beaten by men armed with clubs and iron bars as he slept on his roof to escape a summer heat wave. » | Alex Spillius, Athens | Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Golden Dawn Threatens Hospital Raids against Immigrants in Greece
THE GUARDIAN: Far-right party says it will throw immigrants and their children out on the street, as some hospitals run short of supplies

In an atmosphere that has become increasingly electric before Greece's crucial election, the far-right Golden Dawn has ratcheted up the rhetoric by threatening to remove immigrants and their children from hospitals and kindergartens.

Earning loud applause at an election campaign rally in Athens, Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros said: "If Chrysi Avgi [Golden Dawn] gets into parliament [as polls predict], it will carry out raids on hospitals and kindergartens and it will throw immigrants and their children out on the street so that Greeks can take their place."

Medical supplies and beds at some hospitals are running desperately short. The governor of the state-run Nikea hospital, Theodoros Roupas, called on doctors to stop non-essential surgical interventions because of a critical shortage of gloves, syringes and gauze. The order was revoked when Roupas found emergency supplies later in the day.

"The situation is really critical and getting worse every day," said Dr Panaghiotis Papanikolaou, a neurosurgeon at the hospital. "There is not enough medical staff to cope and huge shortages of supplies. There's no money to even service scanners and surgical microscopes … we're talking about a major healthcare crisis – not in the making, it is happening now." » | Helena Smith in Athens | Tuesday, June 12, 2012

GUARDIAN VIDEO: Greece on the breadline: Jon Henley's euro debt tales » | Jon Henley, Alex Healey and Mustafa Khalili | Tuesday, March 27, 2012