#panagiotaras

[elladastinkardiamou]

For directing a criminal org

Nikos Michaloliakos: 13 years / 1 year & €1,000 for illegal possession of weapons Ilias Kasidiaris: 13 years Ioannis Lagos: 13 years Ilias Panagiotaros: 13 years Artemis Mattheopoulos: 10 years Giorgos Germenis: 13 years Christos Pappas: 13 years

[elladastinkardiamou]

In 2012 “Golden Dawn” entered the Greek Parliament with 18 MPs. The roots of the far-right structure, however, are traced back in time, in 1980, when it was founded by its current leader, Nikos Michaloliakos. “Golden Dawn” began as a movement of ideas, publishing a magazine of the same name, leaving a pure ideological mark of Nazism: “We are Nazis […] because in the miracle of the German Revolution of 1933 we saw the Force that would redeem mankind from the Jewish domination” 5, May 1981). It didn’t stop with the magazine, but it went down the streets. At first, we saw racist slogans on the walls and then attacks. The first outbreaks occurred in the 1990s in left-wing organizations and then in immigrants.

Since 1993, as a party, its representatives have stopped referring to national-socialism, denying the label of the fascist organization and defining themselves as nationalists. “We are nationalists and hatred is a healthy human feeling when it is directed against sub-human beings. They are stinkers, garbage of the earth and we will not leave until the last of these scums is gone “, said the MP of “Golden Dawn”, Elias Panagiotaros.

At that time, they were not known, as they are today, but with their action they drew the attention of the first journalists, such as Dimitris Psarras, one of the most profound researchers of the organization, covering and studying the action of “Golden Dawn” for almost three decades. But why did it take so many years for the organization to be brought to the courtroom?

For a long time, “Golden Dawn” has been exploiting the economic crisis that leaves more and more intense scars in the society and the citizens, as well as xenophobia. It creates an anti-monumental narrative and speaks populist, organizing common meals “only for Greeks”, asking for identity from the citizens to verify their national “purity”. At the same time, it acts criminally, murderously and in an extremist way with the tolerance of the political system, the police’s insanity, the silence of journalists and the media as “allies”.