Greece: Court Condemns the Neo-Nazi Party of Golden Dawn as a Criminal Organisation

[Abdülmecid I]

Good news for a change, as today the court's verdict has decided that the Neo-Nazi party of the Golden Dawn is a criminal organisation. Not due to any ideological reasons, although the group's endorsement of Neo-Nazism had been amply demonstrated during the process, but, according to the penal law. It took almost 7 years for the trial to be completed (the penalties have not been determined yet), but it's finally over. For an overview of the trial, I recommend the Golden Dawn Watch website. The charges were firstly filed, when a para-military force of Golden Dawn members assaulted and stabbed to death, Pavlos Fyssas, a leftist musician in the autumn of 2013. A murder for which the Führer of the party, Mihaloliakos assumed full, political responsibility. That murder, together with two attacks against the members of a trade union controlled by the Communist Party of Greece and against Egyptian expatriates seasonally working as fishermen, were the basis for the verdict. The leadership of the Golden Dawn, including the Führer Mihaloliakos and his second-in-command, Kasidiaris, who had just established an offshoot party, were found guilty for leading the criminal organisation, while several other low-ranking members will await punishment for joining it and for the murder of Fyssas.



To give some background, the Golden Dawn was one of the few (I can only think of Jobbik in Hungary, but they might have been more, especially around the Baltics), openly Neo-Nazi parties that succeeded in entering the national Parliament of the European Union country with a relatively impressive popularity (7%). Even before their electoral victories, they boasted of a long history of violence (Mihaloliakos himself has a criminal record for terrorist activities, as a protest for the fall of the military dictatorship and the restoration of democracy), but their extremism had escalated since then. They committed several assaults and even murdered a Pakistani immigrant, although their anti-establishment rhetoric had been mellowed down. For instance, they also enjoyed a cordial relationshp with the ship-owner lobby, probably the strongest (politically and economically) ''industry'' in Greece. They argued for fiscal privileges for the wealthiest businesssmen of the country, they were treated friendly by Marinakis, the most notorious ship-owning magnate, and his media empire, and even the attack against the trade unionists of the shipyard should be interpreted as a manifestation of that alliance.

Therefore, the verdict is great news, since the leadership will remain behind bars in the foreseeable future and the Neo-Nazis will lose any money they might have been entitled to from the public treasury. However, it should also be noted that the public support for the group had already eroded, not because of the murder (Golden Dawn performed very well even in 2015, two years after the assassination), but because of how cowardly and opportunistically the Neo-Nazis reacted. Even the elite refused to recognize any responsibility, played innocent and even abandoned the sinking ship, in order to avoid any negative verdict. Most of the violence stopped completely, Patelis, the chief of the security batallion that murdered Fyssas, fainted during the trial and Boukouras, a MP notorious for throwing immigrants into the sea, begged his colleagues for forgiveness, amidst a tearful appeal at theit magnaminity. I wonder, did Göring also cry in Nuremberg? And the chubby Air Marshal faced the prospect of execution, not imprisonment...



Overall, I think the affair justified Marx' quote about the farcial repetitions of history, although innocent human beings still died. Of course, the authorities reacted very slowly (even during the trial, the prosecutor herself asked for the charges to be dropped) and any judicial efforts were undermined by the affiliation of the law enforcement with the Neo-Nazis. However, the result definitely leaves room for optimism and proves that Neo-Nazism can actually be dealt with through legal procedures, something that was probably not true in the Interwar years. The crucial difference is, in my opinion, the modern extreme right relies on selfish populists and on ignorant voters, not on determined ideologues and impoverished, desperate masses, while the menace of Bolshevism no longer exists, so neither the oligarchs nor the more moderate conservatives have any substantial reason to pander to the far-right. Neo-Nazis may sound tough behind the safety of their keyboard, but once the consequences arrive, the movement will quickly fragment and gradually evaporate.

For an interesting documentary about the Golden Dawn, I suggest the French ''Une affaire personnelle'':



The best part starts in the 41st minute, where the local Gauleiter instructs an inferior member on how to avoid the potentially embarrassing questions of the journalist about the party's Antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

I wonder, did Göring also cry in Nuremberg? And the chubby Air Marshal faced the prospect of execution, not imprisonment...

Göring aka Meier got rid of his opiat addiction during the imprisonment before the trial. So he had had his second spring and old charisma of former times.

As AFD parliament groups in several german federal states have had dissolved the last few weeks, the rise of populist parties seem to be over in western and central europe.

[Beorn]

Here someone can watch all the inquest and trial proceeding of GD.

Today, a massive protest against GD took place in the area around the Judiciary, where tens of thousands of people demonstrated against fascism



A few seconds after the announcement of the decision, while the protestors were celebrating police opened fire with tear gas and water cannons as seen in videos like this one. (The announcement of the decision is heard at 0:22 and the tear gas beginnings at 1:05). Not surprising, considering the support for the neonazi party within the police organizations.


Today was the first victory against them, but we still have to wait until the actual sentences are announced, and the result of the appeals.

[Alastor]

I am rather surprised by the verdict. I haven't followed this trial very closely but last I heard the prosecution had said there isn't enough evidence to convict the former MPs for running a criminal organization. If I remember correctly and the prosecutor had stated that then the guilty verdict feels more like an emotional, or worse still biased response against an undesirable ideology, rather than an impartial application of justice. Certainly what is and isn't considered just does depend to a degree on the current mores and mood of society, but the judiciary should be able to rise above these factors and be fair in its interpretation of the law rather than attempt to placate the mob.

Anyway, I still doubt these people will end up in jail for all that long, if indeed they are jailed at all. They haven't been sentenced yet, I expect there will be quite the battle over mitigating factors and it's likely for many of them whatever sentence they receive will be deferred.

[alhoon]

Good news for a change, as today the court's verdict has decided that the Neo-Nazi party of the Golden Dawn is a criminal organisation.

YES! YES!!!!


Meh... can't rep Abdulmecid yet.


But today is a day of celebration! Oh, glorious day!
I am very happy with this turn of events and the exposure of the criminal thugs of the Golden Dawn. The cockroaches that supported openly GD in 2012, now pretend they were never part of this Neonazi criminal organization. Not every voter of the GD was an opportunistic, self-serving bootlicker, but many were.
From the not-self-serving ones, the not-so-smart and more-than-a-little naive far rightwings I know, a couple have recognized their mistake. They still hold some ideas that I consider appalling and dangerous but they admit that GD was Neo-nazi and that they refused to see the signs.


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[Heathen Hammer]

I am rather surprised by the verdict. I haven't followed this trial very closely but last I heard the prosecution had said there isn't enough evidence to convict the former MPs for running a criminal organization. If I remember correctly and the prosecutor had stated that then the guilty verdict feels more like an emotional, or worse still biased response against an undesirable ideology, rather than an impartial application of justice. Certainly what is and isn't considered just does depend to a degree on the current mores and mood of society, but the judiciary should be able to rise above these factors and be fair in its interpretation of the law rather than attempt to placate the mob.

Anyway, I still doubt these people will end up in jail for all that long, if indeed they are jailed at all. They haven't been sentenced yet, I expect there will be quite the battle over mitigating factors and it's likely for many of them whatever sentence they receive will be deferred.

Doubt that jailing them was the goal, their target was getting rid of an opposition party.
Seems that them being 'Nazis" is just an excuse to suppress political opposition first and foremost. Kinda similar to how opposition against Putin in Russia is often labeled as "extremist" to deny them voice and representation. Ironically, this is quite similar to what NSDAP itself did in 30s Germany.
Also what will happen after, is that they'll just rebrand and create a party that will probably gain more power as it would have less controversy tied to its name.

[alhoon]

Doubt that jailing them was the goal, their target was getting rid of an opposition party.
Seems that them being 'Nazis" is just an excuse to suppress political opposition first and foremost.

- They were not "Nazis", they were Nazis.
- Getting rid of an opposition party: I don't think so: 1. The GD had already lost much of its voter base to other, less controversial, far-right parties. 2. They were holding 1%-2% of the xenophobes and far-right locked down in a party that wouldn't get in the parliament. Thus with the dissolution of Golden Dawn, those far rights would move to other far-right parties and perhaps tip the scale to get them in the parliament. 3. We have seen with our far-right parties in the past decades that this 4%-5% of far-rightwings moves from one far-right party to the next. LAOS was first, then it was ANEL, then it was GD, now it is Velopoulos.

what will happen after, is that they'll just rebrand and create a party that will probably gain more power as it would have less controversy tied to its name.

We know that. Everyone does. They were in the process of doing that. They split the party and started moving key persons to the less controversial sister-parties. They would see which one of them would fare better and they would coalesce around him. They still plan to do just that.
Also, as mentioned above, the Voters for the far-right move from one such party to the other within 5-6 years.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

I am rather surprised by the verdict. I haven't followed this trial very closely but last I heard the prosecution had said there isn't enough evidence to convict the former MPs for running a criminal organization.

Indeed, she argued that all actions for which charges were pressed represented unsolicited crimes of individual party members without any evidence of central planning or coordination having been demonstrated, not to mention the absence of any motives related to economic benefit whatsoever. This verdict clearly comes about as a politically motivated decision fueled on the one hand by the threat of widespread riots and looting by leftist groups, to which monopoly of street violence has been now practically ceded, and on the other hand by the commitment of the ruling cuckservative party to suppress manifestations of Greek nativism on every level.

[Heathen Hammer]

- They were not "Nazis", they were Nazis.
- Getting rid of an opposition party: I don't think so: 1. The GD had already lost much of its voter base to other, less controversial, far-right parties. 2. They were holding 1%-2% of the xenophobes and far-right locked down in a party that wouldn't get in the parliament. Thus with the dissolution of Golden Dawn, those far rights would move to other far-right parties and perhaps tip the scale to get them in the parliament. 3. We have seen with our far-right parties in the past decades that this 4%-5% of far-rightwings moves from one far-right party to the next. LAOS was first, then it was ANEL, then it was GD, now it is Velopoulos.

Its a process for any political party, tbqh. Their ideology in this case is irrelevant, although the court's decision is going to do nothing other then give them organic support due to obvious political nature of court's decision.
At the end of the day its the same thing as Trump using his SCOTUS majority to declare Democratic Party a criminal organization, different scale, but same idea.

[Love Mountain]

I would hope that the court's decision was political. I don't see how choosing to reject Nazis from participating in the political process wouldn't be.

[alhoon]

I would hope that the court's decision was political. I don't see how choosing to reject Nazis from participating in the political process wouldn't be.

Well, the ruling doesn't reject the right of Nazis to participate in the political process. It simply branded the neo-nazi organization that recruited, radicalized, trained and sent out to terrorize and murder people as a criminal organization. It is legal to be a Nazi in Greece. It is legal to make a party for Nazis. It is not legal to use this party to murder people.

[athanaric]

Today, a massive protest against GD took place in the area around the Judiciary, where tens of thousands of people demonstrated against fascism

I don't know much about GD and whether the verdict is justified or not, but I gotta ask, are there too few Covid deaths in the area or something? Because this looks like an excellent way to increase the death toll and ruin what's left of the public health sector. How about writing letters to MPs instead, or some other form of civic engagement?

[Abdülmecid I]

Its a process for any political party, tbqh. Their ideology in this case is irrelevant, although the court's decision is going to do nothing other then give them organic support due to obvious political nature of court's decision.

Well, since the charges were filed, Golden Dawn's popularity decline, it eventually failed to enter the Parliament and many of its high-ranking members publicly disavowed it (some of them with tears), so I doubt the verdict is going to reinforce its strength. Given the comically cowardly reactions that have been so far documented, no right-wing extremist will probably have the guts to even remotely imitate the pogroms initiated by the convincted Neo-Nazis. Not that the response of the electorate should matter. Since the Neo-Nazi group regularly assaulted and murdered trade unionists, leftists and immigrants, a prison sentence was the only, inevitable destination of their bloody journey. In fact, although the court decision is very welcome news, indeed, one could wonder if the lives of Luqman and Fyssas would have been saved, if the authorities had actually done their job earlier, since the first time the Neo-Nazis of the Golden Dawn unprovokedly attacked the "inner enemy". I understand that many of the criminals might now feel absolutely terrified, byt the real word is not a safe space for violent psycopaths. In modern democracies, if you violate the law, you should expect the appropriate punishment, I am afraid, as long as you are considered a legally responsible adult.

Indeed, she argued that all actions for which charges were pressed represented unsolicited crimes of individual party members without any evidence of central planning or coordination having been demonstrated, not to mention the absence of any motives related to economic benefit whatsoever. This verdict clearly comes about as a politically motivated decision fueled on the one hand by the threat of widespread riots and looting by leftist groups, to which monopoly of street violence has been now practically ceded, and on the other hand by the commitment of the ruling cuckservative party to suppress manifestations of Greek nativism on every level.

I am rather surprised by the verdict. I haven't followed this trial very closely but last I heard the prosecution had said there isn't enough evidence to convict the former MPs for running a criminal organization. If I remember correctly and the prosecutor had stated that then the guilty verdict feels more like an emotional, or worse still biased response against an undesirable ideology, rather than an impartial application of justice. Certainly what is and isn't considered just does depend to a degree on the current mores and mood of society, but the judiciary should be able to rise above these factors and be fair in its interpretation of the law rather than attempt to placate the mob.

So, what exactly makes the opinion of the prosecutor more valid than the unanimous verdict of the 8-men tribunal? Why should the judges be biased against the poor, little fascists and not the prosecutor herself, who defended the Golden Dawn during the trial (including her accepting the historically absurd claim that their Nazi salute has ancient, Greek origins)? Common sense dictates that it's more probable that a single individual will be partial than that eight will conspire to deprive the Greek electorate of its most iconic, Nazi group. If you have detected a weakness undermining the indictment and the verdict of Golden Dawn constituing a criminal association, feel free to discuss it. The rest is just pointless speculation.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

I would hope that the court's decision was political. I don't see how choosing to reject Nazis from participating in the political process wouldn't be.

It wouldn't be in the scenario where the court's decision came about as the corollary of the application of the statutes of the Greek penal code - which criminalizes actions, not ideas - to factually proven pertinent charges... which is in fact the spin that the parliamentary regime puts on the court's ruling in order to maintain the charade of the tripartite division of government and of upholding the rule of law.

So, what exactly makes the opinion of the prosecutor more valid than the unanimous verdict of the 8-men tribunal? Why should the judges be biased against the poor, little fascists and not the prosecutor herself, who defended the Golden Dawn during the trial (including her accepting the historically absurd claim that their Nazi salute has ancient, Greek origins)?

Because
1) advancing their career rests on the goodwill of the politically appointed leadership of the Ministry of Justice, thereby ultimately on the wishes of the governing party
2) there was a large leftist mob outside waiting for a pretext to riot and loot, if not attack them personally, either outright in a spur-of-the-moment storming of the hall or at a later point through a terrorist act, as have other high ranking officials of the state apparatus been before

If you have detected a weakness undermining the indictment and the verdict of Golden Dawn constituing a criminal association, feel free to discuss it.

I already have: central planning and coordination of the separate crimes through a hierarchy or chain of command was never demonstrated.

[alhoon]

I don't know much about GD and whether the verdict is justified or not, but I gotta ask, are there too few Covid deaths in the area or something? Because this looks like an excellent way to increase the death toll and ruin what's left of the public health sector. How about writing letters to MPs instead, or some other form of civic engagement?

Actually, cases in Athens have spiked and 22000 people gathered and shouting indeed would be catastrophic.
You just made one of the monumental events in 2020 for my country so much worse by pointing that out.

RIP to all patriots and pro-democracy forces that will die as a result of this gathering.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

RIP to all patriots and pro-democracy forces that will die as a result of this gathering.

22000 people and somehow not a single Greek flag showed up among all those patriots

[alhoon]

I can see two small Greek flags in the pic in the OP. There are probably more.

EDIT: Yeap, there are more. Look at the curve of the panorama. There are several there.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Indeed, the lady on the balcony overlooking the demonstration does stand next to a Greek flag.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Can you help me spot the Greek flags in the close-ups of the patriotic crowd, alhoon?

[Alastor]

I don't know much about GD and whether the verdict is justified or not, but I gotta ask, are there too few Covid deaths in the area or something? Because this looks like an excellent way to increase the death toll and ruin what's left of the public health sector. How about writing letters to MPs instead, or some other form of civic engagement?

That's actually a good point. I wonder if there was any condemnation of these protests, especially considering that Greece and particularly Attica are experiencing a dangerous second wave and measures are being enforced that severely impact people's daily lives. If those protests have not been condemned, then people will be justified to ask if covid measures are only applicable when it is not in service to a political agenda or other.

@Abdulmecid I
Timoleon covered my concern regarding this verdict quite well. If even the prosecutor says there is not enough evidence to show central planning and coordination of the crimes in question, I am justified to be rather surprised by the verdict. Also, your attempts to attack the accused ideologically aren't apt. First of all this trial was supposedly not an ideological trial, though the verdict does make me doubt that. Second I don't hold GD or their ex-MPs in any particular esteem, but as people and citizens of a democratic state they have the right to be tried fairly, however distasteful me or you may find their ideology, it is simply not a relevant factor to whether they committed those crimes or not.