5 minute read
They are not innocent
by Àlex Sánchez Aragón
This motto was exclaimed all over Greece regarding the trial of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. The court of Athens declared that this extremely far-right movement was guilty of acting as a criminal organization and not a political party, which meant a turning point for Greek politics.
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5,5 years. 453 sessions. 216 witnesses. These are some of the numbers of the long-awaited conclusion of the Golden Dawn trial that started back in 2015 and has ended up with a major result: the neo-Nazi movement was operating as a criminal organization under the guise of a political party.
In total, 35 members are now in prison facing terms up to 13 years, including the leader Nikolaos Michaloiakos, imprisoned for leading a criminal organization. Other members are behind bars for participating on the net that ordered many victims’ assassination and assaulting. The most significant sentence is for Giorgos Roupakias, who is facing a life sentence after admitting the murder of the Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013, which was a milestone in this story.
The beginning of the trial
On the night of the 18th of September 2013, Pavlos Fyssas, also known by his stage name Killah P, was fatally stabbed when 20 men dressed in black assaulted him when he left from a bar in his hometown Athens, in the neighborhood of Keratsini. Although Golden Dawn always denied any link with the murder, an investigation arose, and their main leaders, Michaloiakos included, were arrested and sent temporarily to prison.
In April 2015, the case against Golden Dawn started with three major cases to solve out: the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, the attempted murder of three Egyptian fishermen in Piraeus port in 2012, and the assault on the Greek Communist party trade union PAME in 2013.
Under the umbrella of these three big incidents, the prosecutors began a trial that had to prove that every action involving Golden Dawn members or supporters was not individual or isolated but coordinated to attack the dissidents: immigrants, communists, LGTBIQ+ people, or any hu-
Pavlos Fyssas memorial in Keratsini, Athens © Àlex Sánchez Aragón
man being differing from their supremacist ideology. On the other side, the defendants denied any direct link with the attacks and said this trial was “politically motivated” and a “conspiracy”.
Despite the court’s historic decision that took these criminals to jail, some experts and witnesses focus on the shades of this case and the meaning of this verdict.
Javed Aslam has been the president of the Pakistani Community in Greece since 2005, and he has been writing down every attack on immigrants since the rise of Golden Dawn in 2009. “It took four years to have an arrested person; the Government was doing nothing,” he says, as he browsed through his four notebooks with hundreds of details of every single racist case.
In the same vein, an expert on far-right movements and professor at the University of Reading in the UK, Daphne Halikiopoulou, stresses that violence was the “key existence” of Golden Dawn, and the police and political elites were aware of those episodes. “There were reports about those attacks, and lots of parties turned the blind eye until Pavlos Fyssas murder became the catalyst,” she argues.
Even harsher on this topic, the Greek journalist Aris Chatzistefanou, who has produced three documentaries regarding fascism, highlights that the ideas of Golden Dawn “are still alive” in the extreme right-wing section of New Democracy. This conservative party is now leading Greece and was ruling the country when Golden Dawn entered the Parliament in 2012. Despite this fact, the current Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said this was a “traumatic cycle in the country’s public life” and stated it’s now a “closed chapter.” “ In terms of the party and the structure, it is dismounted as many leaders left or created other parties, plus they closed down their website and
shut down their offices. But the narrative, the language, and the attitudes are still there”, explains Lefteris Papagiannakis, member of Golden Dawn Watch, an observatory of the trial set up in 2015 to follow the procedure in the courthouse and deliver the process through social media. “This verdict puts limits to democracy; our institutions have set these limits; outside these boundaries, you are out,” he adds. Together with associations like the Hellenic League of Human Rights, they have been informing of what was happening inside the court since the beginning. “Every day, two of us were inside taking hand writing notes, and then we sent it to someone from the team who made a report and posts for Facebook and Twitter”, he explains. Trying to be objective was their main goal: “A member of Golden Dawn was complaining that we were informing about the trial, when actually we were just posting the exact same words he said to the judge”, he recalls.
The future
Considering the rise of Golden Dawn was associated partly with the economic crisis of 2009, a question arises as the coronavirus pandemic may lead to a new critical era for Greek citizens; will they trust again in the extreme right to solve their problems? Who is going to inherit Golden Dawn legacy? Daphne Halikiopoulou sheds some light on this topic: “If anything, the pandemic has damaged
Pavlos Fyssas poster at the office of the Pakistani Community in Omonia, Athens © Àlex Sánchez Aragón
these parties, not helped them. The immediate reaction in a pandemic is to vote for competence; you tend to support those who have experience in governing, you don’t vote to protest”. However, it remains to be seen what will happen in the future.
Actually, one of the most charismatic and violent leaders of Golden Dawn, Ilias Kasidiaris, has created a new party called “Greece belongs to Greeks” and has been rallying around the country before entering prison. Even now convicted as a criminal, he gets support from his fanbase on Youtube, with comments like “God bless you and unveil the conspiracy,” “we found our leader in the jail,” or “keep your head high, eagles fly high now.” These types of comments show the hardcore voters of Golden Dawn, according to Papagiannakis.
“They should have some type of remorse, but fascism is something you have in you.” “They keep a low profile now, but if they have the opportunity, they will come out again,” he stresses. Also, Javed, who has been dealing with racism for more than ten years in Greece, says, “fascism will never end, and they will try to stand up again.”
As somehow a sacred metaphor, for Javed, this was like a giant stone that fell from heaven and hid down all those dark ages. Let’s hope for a long time.
@Hugoveron
