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Greece

Against the far right in all its forms

Wednesday 19 October 2022, by Andreas Sartzekis

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Two years after the conviction of the Nazis of Chryssi Avgi (Golden Dawn), their appeal trial is an opportunity to extend the anti-fascist mobilisation.

The trial, which began in July and could lead to an extension of the sentences from 2020, has become more serious, with provocations by supporters of the defendants in the courtroom (Nazi salutes without police intervention).

The fascist danger remains

Of course, the danger of Chryssi Avgi’s reconstitution is not for tomorrow, if only because, for the past two years, its leaders have classically divided, between a Kassidiaris, a former leader of the assault groups who founded his group, a Lagos, an MEP who was among those responsible for the 2013 murder of the anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, and a Michaloliakos, the führer who is currently less provocative than the other two.

But it is clear that the fascist danger remains, and Kassidiaris is trying to use the trial as a platform to "express the voice of [his] fellow citizens with a strong party, like the ones that now dominate throughout Europe". However, the ground remains fertile in Greece for the constitution of a far-right party that could one day bring together Nazi killers and fascists gradually recycled through the far-right Laos party that governed with the right and Pasok in 2011 and then through New Democracy, where they are pushing a police state line by occupying key positions: Ministry of the Interior, Development...

A symbolic case is that of the Minister of Health, lawyer Thanos Plevris, one of the "recycled", son of Greek Nazi ideologue Kostas Plevris, a sinister admirer of Hitler and author of pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic books, with passages such as this one: "Jew and human being are two contradictory notions, one excludes the other." For such writings, Father Plevris was put on trial, defended at the time by his son, who still did not hesitate in 2009 to protest against the attempt to prevent him from preaching National Socialism. So we don’t believe him for a moment today when he talks about the "bestial" attitude of his father, himself a lawyer defending Lagos, who, in front of Fyssas’ mother, gave her the Nazi salute in court...

In the streets against the brown plague

In the face of all this, some people are demanding that groups or individuals with criminal convictions be banned from standing for election. Above all, it is necessary to fight against the extreme right-wing policy of Prime Minister Mitsotakis, between the systematic use of police violence and the policing of society, and his sought-after links with the extreme right. A rally of a few hundred antifascists took place on 7 October in front of the court, in support of Magda Fyssas who was testifying that day and reminded the president: "My son is not dead, he was murdered"... For Pavlos, for Loukman, for the Egyptian fishermen and for the other victims, and against the persistent danger, the antifascist fight goes on!

19 October 2022

Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste .

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