Greece Golden Dawn: Neo-Nazi leaders guilty of running crime gang
After a five-year trial in Greece, judges rule that Golden Dawn is a criminal organisation.
www.bbc.com
After 5.5 years on trial, in what is the most important trial since the trial of the Colonels that instigated the Junta in 1967, the leaders of the Greek Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn have been declared guilty of running a criminal organization. For those of you not keeping up to date, Golden Dawn has for years run strike squads with which they have targeted immigrants, refugees, and leftists, and have killed an undocumented number of people, believed to be in the low hundreds. The most famous murder is of raper and leftist political activist Pavlos Fyssas, whose high profile death spawned demonstrations and lead to the trial that ultimately damned the party.
Golden Dawn has existed since 1980, and their criminal elements as well as their reverence of Nazism have been known -to those that don't close their eyes and ears- for a long time. But they were a fringe group until the recession hit Greece, where they saw a huge surge in popularity, culminating in them getting almost 10% of the vote on the 2014 elections, becoming the third biggest party in Greece. The members of the organization increased greatly, and they even did fascist marches and Michaloliakos gave speeches reminiscent of Hitler, where he blamed the current state of affairs on Jews, immigrants and refugees, keeping the Greek man down by taking his jobs, and instigating the myth that unless we act Greeks would become the minority in their own country. Golden Dawn exploited the economic recession and the nascent refugee crisis, and as a result they grew exponentially.
It was during this time that GD trained strike squads to target undesirables, and started patrolling the streets at night looking for people to beat up or kill. As someone that crossed fists with GD at the time, I have seen members of such strike squads carry bats, knives and even pistols. For those of you wondering what the police were doing, let's just say that the police and GD were good friends. For three or so years, GD run wild and the police were all too happy to see them go nuts. Only after the trial started really picking up and showing evidence of police involvement in the party that they started to mobilize to save face, and only after most of the leadership was detained did GD's terror attacks stop.
Now that it's over, most people can breathe a sigh of relief. But I cannot help but feel disgust. You see, back when GD started gaining traction, and many on the left condemned the group and called for investigations against them, many within New Democracy -the current party in charge- were quick to legitimize Golden Dawn as a political party. To give a few examples, Dora Bakoyianni, a high profile member of parliament and sister to current PM Kyriakos Mistotakis, had taken several pictures with leaders of GD and went on to say that GD's leaders "treated her with respect". Then Minister of Education (and Religion), Loverdos went on to say that GD is a legitimate movement doing activism on very important matters.. Finally, current PM Mitsotakis, back in 2017 had gone on to say that political violence in Greece comes exclusively from the Left.. Ever since coming to power, Mitsotakis has expanded the police and their powers(who I might remind you, were pretty chummy with GD and their methods, and has a long history of brutality, including murdering a 15 year old and an LGBT+ activist), letting them run rampant by raiding Exarcheia (a suburb of Athens known for its Anarchist community) and breaking peaceful protests with force, as well as repealing the law that banned police from entering university campuses. (Which is significant, as occupying the campus has been a major way for students to start political demonstrations against the government since the Politexnio uprising). To paraphrase Brecht and sum up the situation. "Though the beast is dead, the ***** that bore him is in heat again".
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