Right-Wing Extremists’ (Golden Dawn) Popularity Rising Rapidly in Greece

[pampango]

The video, which went viral in Greece last month, shows about 40 burly men, led by Giorgos Germenis, a lawmaker with the right-wing Golden Dawn party, marching through a night market in the town of Rafina demanding that dark-skinned merchants show permits. Some do, and they are left alone. But the action quickly picks up, as the men, wearing black T-shirts with the party’s name, destroy a stall with clubs and scatter the merchandise. “We saw a few illegal immigrants selling their wares,” Mr. Germenis says in the video. “We did what Golden Dawn has to do.

Golden Dawn’s tactics are similar to ones it used before parliamentary elections in June. Preying on fears that immigrants are worsening crime rates and economic hardship, the group has been stepping up attacks against immigrants, many of whom are legal citizens, with the police frequently standing by. It is also trying to expand its reach with the Greek diaspora.

The group is still far from being a major threat to Mr. Samaras’s party, or to his fragile three-party coalition government. Most Greeks express alarm at the group’s rise, and anti-fascist organizations in Athens are continuing efforts neighborhood by neighborhood to counter its increased vigilantism.

Mr. Demertzis, the University of Athens professor, said Golden Dawn was effective because it did more than just utter political platitudes. Its members “do their propaganda through deeds, exactly the same way that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt does, or Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/world/europe/amid-greeces-worries-the-rise-of-right-wing-extremists.html

[tama]

1. 50% of Athenian cops

voted GD. And police is sending people to seek protection from GD. Without cops they would be nothing. And cops are protecting government from demonstrators. Do the math.