Alexis Tsirpas – Western Thrace to revert back to their original toponyms. February 17, 2015
Posted by Yilan in Yunanistan.Tags: Alexis Tsirpas, Çetin Mandacı, Bati Trakya, Greece, PASOK
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Alexis Tsirpas speaking with local Turkish leaders in the Western Thrace city of Komotini promised that his party Syrzia will look into a draft law to revert back to old Turkish placenames renamed over 65 years ago.
Newly elected Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsirpas was keen on the idea to rename toponyms in Western Thrace to their previous toponyms bearing Turkish names in an effort to boost friendly relations with Turkey which has been pressuring Greece for many years to provide human rights for the Muslim Turkish minority in Greece..
Alexis Tsirpas indicated that he and his Syriza party will back the draft-law for restoring authentic toponyms in Thrace be brought in through Greece’s Legislative parliamentary commission.
A two-third majority is required in order the draft-law on restoring authentic toponyms to be enacted, which means that opposition MPs need to be in favour of the document.
“In the entire region of Bati Trakya (Western Thrace) no one uses the Hellenised name of the municipalities or the other names of places… for us and for our ancestors and future generations it has been and will always be Turkish names such as Gümülcine for Komitini or İskeçe for Xanthi. In 1949 a decision had been reached against the will of the Turks in Western Thrace to change the toponyms. In recent years, the Turkish language is in use thus they are written in Turkish with the Turkish Alphabet,” says former Member of Parliament and ex PASOK MP, Cetin Mandaci.
Greece’s Syriza starts afresh with Turkey February 17, 2015
Posted by Yilan in Turkey, Yunanistan.Tags: Alexis Tsipras, Syriza, Turkey
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Alexis Tsipras, SYRIZA party leader and winner of the Greek parliamentary elections, signs papers appointing him the first leftist prime minister. (Photo: Reuters)
Following the left-wing Syriza party’s election victory on Sunday under the leadership of Alexis Tsipras, the new coalition government is not expected to make any radical policy changes in Greek-Turkish relations and is likely to follow the same policies on Cyprus and the Aegean, while continuing to support Turkey’s European Union membership.
Only short two parliamentarians to form a majority government, 40-year-old Tsipras swiftly struck a deal on Monday with the Independent Greeks party — a small right-wing party that is also anti-austerity — to form a government.
The success of a left-wing party like Syriza means a positive change for the Turkish minority in Western Thrace as well. Tsipras’ party is known for its moderate approach towards the Turkish minority and three members of the Turkish minority community in Western Thrace have been elected to the Greek parliament under Syriza.
Two of the parliamentarians of Turkish origin, Mustafa Mustafa and Ayan Karayusuf, have won in Komotini; meanwhile, Hüseyin Zeybek won in the Xanthi province.
Another positive expectation is that of no change in Greece’s support for Turkey’s EU membership.
In the first comments on the strong win for the leftist Syriza party in the elections, Turkey said on Monday that it respects the choice of the Greek people and that it was ready to work with any party that comes to power, especially on the Cyprus problem and tensions in the Aegean. “Everybody should show respect. We certainly respect the decision of the Greek people. We are ready to work with any government elected to power,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters at a joint news conference with his Hungarian counterpart after talks in Ankara.
The foreign minister said Turkey wants to restart reunification talks in Cyprus and hydrocarbon exploration in the eastern Mediterranean in a manner that protects the rights of Turkish Cypriots. “Greece has an important role to play in these matters. We are willing to work with Greece in both restarting the Cyprus talks and easing existing tensions,” he said, adding: “Of course, we want to maintain contact with Greece. We would like to continue exploratory talks on reducing tensions in the Aegean and resolving existing problems.”
Turkey and Greece are at odds over the fate of Cyprus and territorial rights in the Aegean. UN-backed reunification talks between Turkish and Greek communities of Cyprus came to a halt in October when the Greek Cypriot side announced that it had suspended the talks in protest of Turkey’s plan to search for oil and gas in waters where the Greek Cypriot administration had already licensed drilling.
The two neighbors have also been holding talks on how to resolve their disputes regarding their territorial rights in the Aegean.
Despite the Cyprus and Aegean disputes, however, Ankara and Athens maintain good relations, and Greece is a supporter of Turkey’s bid to join the EU. Çavuşoğlu said Greek governments have traditionally been supportive of, or at least not opposed to, Turkey’s accession into the EU and that Turkey expected the new Greek government to support or at least not obstruct the Turkish bid.
Çavuşoğlu further stated that the Turkish delegation had a “very productive” meeting with Tsipras during a visit by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to Greece in December, in which the two sides discussed bilateral relations, the situation in Europe and the Cyprus issue.
No radical policy changes in short term
Thanos Dokos, the director-general of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), said that he does not expect any significant changes in Greece-Turkey relations under Syriza.
“They will follow roughly the same policy on Cyprus and the Aegean. Also, the emphasis will be on their domestic agenda, as well as relations with Greece’s European partners, not foreign policy issues,” Dokos told Today’s Zaman on Monday.
“Therefore, it is unlikely that they will make any radical policy changes during the next few months — with the possible exception of the continued application of European sanctions against Russia,” he added.
Dokos also stated that there is a tendency inside Syriza to implement some positive changes regarding the Muslim minority in Western Thrace, such as enabling the collective self-determination of minority groups.
“However, such tendencies may be offset by the strong conservative/nationalistic positions of their coalition partners, the Independent Greeks,” said Dokos.
Many political circles in Greece stress the importance of the person to be picked for the position of foreign minister in the new Greek government. One of the names who being considered for this position is Foreign Ministry adviser Nikos Kotzias, who is known to be critical of Turkey.
Mustafa Mustafa, a parliamentarian of Turkish origin who was elected under Syriza on Sunday, told Today’s Zaman that Syriza’s victory means the policies followed by the New Democrats and Pasot parties in past years have collapsed.
“There are many issues in the country waiting to be resolved, and the former ruling parties have exploited issues such as the minority issue in their election campaign and not honored their promises after coming to office. On top of that we have experienced an economic crisis, and in the end our community supported Syriza because Syriza is a party which openly supports human rights, democracy, equality and social justice,” Mustafa told Today’s Zaman in a phone interview on Monday.
Mustafa said that there have been some positive developments in Turkey-Greece relations after the troubled period in the late ’90s and that, with Syriza coming to power, this positive trend will continue.
“We are a party that seeks to have a positive and consistent relationship with its neighbors based on international law, mutual respect … . And as a Turkish minority community in Greece, our expectation is that the relationship between Turkey and Greece will improve with this new government,” said Mustafa.
Mustafa said he expects his party will succeed on this difficult road ahead. “I send my great respect, love and friendship to Turkish people,” he added.
In a press statement on Monday, the head of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), Halit Habipoğlu, said: “We start afresh in our country Greece. People said no to the politicians representing the former order. Greece voted for change in Sunday’s election. This is not a change in social and economic areas. Greece will be rebuilt. We hope to enjoy an environment in the country in which we all enjoy freedom of expression.”
He also stressed that the Turkish minority wants more rights and fair treatment from the new government based on the principles of equal rights and democracy.
Cenk Sidar — the founder of Sidar Global Advisors (SGA), a Washington-based consulting firm — stressed that Turkish opposition parties, including leftist parties, should observe the example of Greece after the victory of the left-wing Syriza party.
In his column on the Turkish web portal Diken, Sidar said a young and dynamic team with a clear message would have a chance to win against a strong ruling party in Turkey, as happened in Greece.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Adana deputy Faruk Loğoğlu said the election victory for Syriza is a positive development for Greece and that it will subsequently have a positive effect on Turkey as well.
Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Loğoğlu said: “But in the short run, the new steps and reforms the new Greek government will follow are not likely to be reflected in bilateral relations.”
Loğoğlu said he doesn’t expect a significant change regarding the Aegean continental shelf issue or the ethnically divided island of Cyprus. He stressed that all the parties in Greece see Cyprus as part of the Hellenic world.
Veteran diplomat Loğoğlu also said that the Turkish minority in Western Thrace will be affected positively by this change, as left-wing parties like Syriza have a positive approach to minorities.
He said there may be some positive changes such as expanded acceptance of the use of the Turkish language, the appointment of muftis and the election of members of the Turkish minority to office.
With regards to the potential problems between Greece and the EU on austerity issues, Loğoğlu said the EU and Greece have the capacity to overcome them.
“The EU will find a way out of its problems with Greece. There were other crises in the EU before, including eurozone issues, and the EU was able to overcome these problems,” Loğoğlu said.
Greek, Roma and Muslim: An ill-fated foray into politics May 23, 2014
Posted by Yilan in Trakya, Yunanistan.Tags: Greece, Turkey. Bati Trakya
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Why Sabiha Suleiman, a minority within a minority, never stood a chance.
A few weeks before the much-touted European parliamentary elections, there were reports in the Greek press that a Muslim Roma activist by the name of Sabiha Suleiman would be a candidate, running with the left-of-centre main opposition party Syriza. Shockingly, Suleiman’s candidacy was over almost as soon as it was announced.
What was intriguing was that a fellow Syriza candidate, who happens to be a vice president of the esteemed International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) advocacy group, went on record to say that he personally had made every effort to ensure Sabiha Suleiman was struck off the ballot.
Dimitris Christopoulos, the candidate in question, on paper, has an impeccable record in the field of progressive politics and human rights. Apart from his role in the FIDH, Christopoulos is a noted academic, specialising in minority rights. Moreover, he recently edited and co-authored a report examining the rise of ultra-right extremism, xenophobia and racism within the Greek state apparatus, on behalf of a think-tank directly linked to Germany’s leftist party Die Linke.
What was the reasoning behind what can only be called an attack on Suleiman, who through her work in the Roma settlement of Drosero, in the northeastern region of Thrace, has produced measurable and commendable improvement in the lives of Muslim Roma children and women, through education and self-empowerment? Incidentally, Syriza placed labour activist Kostadinka Kuneva, a Bulgarian immigrant who was the victim of an acid attack because of her political views and actions, on the same European ballot. So striking Suleiman off could in no way be perceived as an attempt at assuaging possibly bigoted Greek voters.
‘A unified Turkish thing’
The reason Christopoulos initially gave for his statements and actions was that Suleiman’s candidacy would be a show of support for nationalism in an area of Greece which is plagued by it, to the detriment of those Greek Muslims who define themselves as ethnically Turkish. He even said that the Muslim minority in Thrace is a “unified Turkish thing”, and – initially – made no mention of those Muslims who define themselves as Roma or Pomak, a Slav-speaking ethnic group.
| The reason Christopoulos initially gave for his statements and actions was that Suleiman’s candidacy would be a show of support for nationalism in an area of Greece which is plagued by it, to the detriment of those Greek Muslims who define themselves as ethnically Turkish. |
Suleiman at the same time was smeared by those media supporting Syriza as someone who had received funding from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and nationalist circles. In response, Suleiman, who defines herself as a Greek Roma Muslim woman, said all this was happening because the Turkish consulate in Thrace was targeting her, as they wanted to ensure that the Muslim Roma were absorbed into the Turkish minority. Worryingly, there are reports that Suleiman has been physically attacked at least twice and that she receives threats almost every day. The mainstream media and the governing coalition parties seized the opportunity to accuse Syriza of catering to the interests of a foreign power.
To say that things got messy and complicated would be an understatement. Before proceeding, let us set out some of the issues in question: self-identification, self-determination, gender, class, ethnicity, social class, citizenship, religion, memory, history, politics, diplomacy. What happens when all these combine to form an explosive mix? And what happens when one minority, itself the victim of discrimination, discriminates against another, less numerous minority?
To get a sense of why things are the way they are in Greek Thrace, we have to travel back in time to 1923, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, when Greece and the then newly-formed Turkey signed the Lausanne peace treaty. It foresaw the forced relocation of nearly 2 million people, considered a progressive step at the time. The primary criterion for defining ethnicity was religion. Muslims living in Greece were relocated to Turkey and Christians living in Turkey to Greece. Two groups were spared: Those Greeks living in Istanbul as well as on two islands at the mouth of the Dardanelles; and the Muslim population of western Thrace which ethnically was comprised of Turks, Pomaks and Roma. One of the best accounts of what happened, combining exemplary research and a well-written narrative structure, is Bruce Clark’s Twice a Stranger.
In Greece, those members of what the Lausanne Treaty called the “Muslim minority” during the Cold War were treated by the Greek state as a Turkish minority. Turkey was a NATO ally and the fear that the Slav-speaking Pomaks would side with Communist Bulgaria was greater. This changed when Greece and Turkey clashed over the issue of Cyprus, which Turkey invaded in 1974. Relations between Greece and Turkey have markedly improved since, but for those suffering the consequences of diplomacy, there is still a sense of being pawns in a game.
Petty politics
But let us return to petty politics. In all the mayhem surrounding Suleiman, another candidacy passed comparatively unnoticed: that of Photini Tomai, head of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ archives, who is running with the governing New Democracy party and who called Syriza’s stance towards Suleiman “treasonous”. Among Tomai’s accomplishments is a book on the Greeks who died at Auschwitz concentration camp, an official publication of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
So why mention this? It is less well known that the Roma were themselves the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. No Greek foreign ministry publication has been commissioned for those Greek Roma who were killed, Christian or Muslim. In any case, the Roma, Europe’s biggest minority, remain on the margins of society and discrimination against them is rampant.
So which minority deserves more support? The regrettable situation for those Greek Muslims in Thrace who define themselves as ethnic Turks or ethnic Pomaks, in the face of the inadequacies of the Greek state, material and political, is a given. But Suleiman bears the additional burden of not being able to rely on support from a renascent Turkey, a country today part of the G20 group of developed nations. An openly pro-Turkey political party has been set up in Greek Thrace, whose discourse is similar to that of the Turkish state.
Moreover, a key member of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s cabinet hails from Greek Thrace and reportedly takes a keen interest in the area. Interestingly, again because of the Lausanne Treaty, Greek Thrace is the only region in Europe where Sharia law applies. This has specific implications as to the rights of women. Suleiman, as a Muslim Roma woman, belongs to a minority within a minority within another minority. How do political institutions, how do societies, how do social groups, deal with such issues? Usually they do not.
Ironically, Turkey itself abolished Sharia in 1926, adopting the Swiss civil code. Speaking of Switzerland, apart from being one of the most industrialised countries in the world on a per capita basis, it granted women the right to vote only in 1971. Would that imply Switzerland’s success is based on the limitations of the rights of women? Of course not. It is time we make proper correlations between cause and effect, especially towards those most vulnerable in our societies.
Are Greeks returning to Turkey? May 23, 2014
Posted by Yilan in Turkey, Yunanistan.Tags: Greece, Turkey
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The Turkish media reported earlier this month that four Greek families had decided to leave Greece and (re)settle on the island of Gokceada, in Turkey’s northern Aegean region, encouraged by the reopening of a Greek primary school there. What was reported as a “small” story is actually of great significance given Turkey’s deep-rooted hostile policies toward its minorities.
The two islands mentioned in the reports — Gokceada and Bozcaada, or Imbros and Tenedos in Greek — had overwhelmingly Greek populations throughout their history until the 1960s, when Turkey’s policies drastically changed their demography. The number of ethnic Greeks has since dwindled to several hundred, while the number of Turks shot up to the tens of thousands.
Over the decades, Turkey’s ethnic Greeks became scapegoats whenever the Turkish minorities in Cyprus or Greece suffered oppression or Turkey’s relations with Greece were strained. Populated heavily with Greeks, Gokceada and Bozcaada bore the brunt of Turkey’s antagonistic attitudes vis-à-vis its ethnic Greek citizens. In 2008, European Parliament rapporteur Andreas Gross penned a comprehensive report on the two islands’ historical and cultural fabric and detailed the plight of their former Greek inhabitants. One of the most striking sections documents how the Greeks were forced to leave.
Gross wrote that the Greek islanders’ fate took a turn for the worse following the 1960 military coup in Turkey. The Greek schools on the islands were closed in 1964 amid Greek-Turkish ethnic strife in Cyprus, and the Greeks’ farmland was largely expropriated. The establishment of an “open prison” (agricultural prison) on Gokceada and the criminal acts the inmates committed against the Greek islanders drove many to emigrate. Gross said authorities failed to effectively intervene, but documents that emerged in later years indicate that criminal acts were in fact part of deliberate state policy.
For instance, the judicial probe into the Sledgehammer coup plot against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that resulted in the conviction of hundreds of soldiers last year turned up audio recordings of military meetings, including information on how the Turkish army targeted the islands. In one 2003 recording, for instance, a colonel is heard making the following comments: “First, we sent a gendarme commando unit to Gokceada to force the Greeks there to emigrate. We established an open prison there. This resulted in a significant wave of emigration. I guess state institutions did certain things step by step [through] the open prison there, certain things involving the cultivation of land and so on. No doubt this created certain issues. All those things would have been impossible today, but the state of Turkish-Greek relations at the time forced them to do it in response to the practices [against Turks in Greece’s region of] western Trace.”
In the recording, the officer speaking, Col. Bulent Tuncay, head of the 1st Army’s Planning and Operations Department, is telling his colleagues that the acts committed against the Greeks were actual “state policy.” Gross asserted that the closure of Greek-language schools in 1964 was the primary factor that drove the Greek islanders to leave. In light of this background, the reopening of a Greek school in Gokceada after five decades, an insignificant development in itself, represents an important sign of change in a fundamental policy.
Another important sign emerged on Dec. 13, 2013, when Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with former Greek inhabitants of Gokceada during a visit to Athens. Paris Asanakis, head of the Imbros Association and a meeting participant, said Davutoglu extended an invitation to the 25,000 Gokceada Greeks scattered around the world to apply to regain their Turkish citizenship. Davutoglu’s visit and the drive to reopen Greek schools in Gokceada appears to have warmed Greek emigrants to the idea of returning to their native islands.
In a May 9 article, Taraf‘s Sumeyra Tansel stated, “Following the reopening of Gokceada’s Greek primary school after 49 years last year, the Greek secondary and high schools are also scheduled to reopen. The old school building, currently a property of the Canakkale Special Provincial Administration, and a kindergarten, built in 1964 but never put to use as the schools were shut down the same year, will be renovated and inaugurated as a secondary school and a high school. In addition, the hostel, which used to serve as teachers’ lodgings before being transferred to the Special Provincial Administration, has already been returned to its former owners. It will again house Greek teachers. With the reopening of the schools after five decades, former inhabitants are beginning to return from Greece. The first four families are on their way.”
In an April 17 interview with Zaman, Stelyo Pulados, deputy chairman of the Imbros Association, noted that the reopening of the island’s primary school and the economic crisis in Greece would encourage those who have wished to return. Speculation has been rife that not only the former islanders but the Greeks of Istanbul as well could return to Turkey. In 2012, the Greek journalist Alexandros Massavetas, author of the book “Going Back to Constantinople/Istanbul: A City of Absences,” sparked debate with an appeal to the children of Greek emigrants to return to Istanbul. In remarks to the Turkish press, Massavetas argued, “The Turkish people have come to consider the exodus of Greeks as a loss for Istanbul.”
Not all members of Turkey’s Greek minority, however, agree with Massavetas. Ethnic Greek journalist and Istanbul native Mihail Vasiliadis, for instance, argues that the “hate speech” targeting Greeks in Turkey today must first come to an end before a return could become possible.
As I have noted in previous articles for Al-Monitor, the AKP government’s policy vis-à-vis non-Muslim minorities signals a break from the Kemalist militarist state tradition, but a comprehensive overhaul is yet to take place. It would be premature to say that Turkey has adopted policies that embrace non-Muslims and encourage their mass return. For instance, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan often refers to Turkey’s various ethnic groups to emphasize the country’s heterogeneous fabric, but his list remains limited to such Muslim communities as Arabs, Circassians, Kurds and Turks.
Nevertheless, the AKP government’s softening of Turkey’s historically hostile policies toward minorities and the return of several Greek families to the picturesque Aegean islands is inspiring hope for the future.
Alarm at Greek police ‘collusion’ with far-right Golden Dawn October 21, 2012
Posted by Yilan in Yunanistan.Tags: Golden Dawn, Greece, Ilias Panagiotaros
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Greece’s far-right party, Golden Dawn, won 18 parliamentary seats in the June election with a campaign openly hostile to illegal immigrants and there are now allegations that some Greek police are supporting the party.
“There is already civil war,” says Ilias Panagiotaros. If so, the shop he owns is set to do a roaring trade.
It sells camouflage gear, police riot gloves, face masks and T-shirts extolling football hooliganism.
On the walls are posters celebrating the last civil war in Greece, which ended in 1949.
“Greek society is ready – even though no-one likes this – to have a fight: a new type of civil war,” he says.
“On the one side there will be nationalists like us, and Greeks who want our country to be as it used to be, and on the other side illegal immigrants, anarchists and all those who have destroyed Athens several times,” he adds.
You hear comments like this a lot in Greece now but Ilias Panagiotaros is not some figure on the fringes: he is a member of the Greek parliament, one of 18 MPs elected for the far-right Golden Dawn in June’s general election.
Theatre attack
And for Mr Panagiotaros, civil war is not something theoretical.
Last week he led a demonstration that closed down a performance of the Terence McNally play, Corpus Christi.
As police stood by, apparently oblivious, Mr Panagiotaros was filmed shouting racist and homophobic insults at the director of the play, and the actors cowering inside the Chyterio Theatre.
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The attack on Corpus Christi has become a signal moment for Greek politics”
“Wrap it up you little faggots. Yes, just keep staring at me you little hooker. Your time is up.
“You Albanian assholes,” shouts Mr Panagiotaros in the YouTube clip.
Footage filmed inside the theatre, as rocks showered into its open-air auditorium, shows the manager making frantic calls to the chief of police, demanding protection from a mob that had begun to beat up journalists outside.
Other footage shows Golden Dawn MP Christos Pappas “de-arrest” a demonstrator, pulling him from a police detention coach, as the police do nothing.
Calls were made to the public order ministry, who ordered the chief prosecutor to attend the scene. No help arrived.
“This was the Greek Kristallnacht,” says Laertis Vassiliou, the play’s director.
“People went home with broken bones. Every day they phone me now, they phone the theatre, saying: your days are numbered.”
His eyes redden and his face begins to tremble as he tells me:
“They phoned my mother, Golden Dawn. They said we will deliver your son’s body to you in a box of little pieces.
“I want to be told if we are in a democracy or a dictatorship?”
Growing alarm
The attack on Corpus Christi has become a signal moment for Greek politics.
Though Golden Dawn members have attacked migrants frequently, in the past month the far-right party has stepped up its presence on the streets.
It launched a raid on a street market in Rafina, where its uniformed activists demanded to see the permits of migrant stallholdersthere – demonstratively smashing up the property of those who did not have them.
Now, with the attack on a theatre group, alarm is spreading among sections of society that were not previously affected by the party’s actions.
I ask Mr Panagiotaros: how can it be right for a party in parliament to have a uniformed militia that takes on, violently, the role of law enforcement, checking papers and overturning market stalls? He explains:
“With one incident, which was on camera, the problem was solved – in every open market all over Greece illegal immigrants disappeared.
“There was some pushing and some fighting – nothing extraordinary, nothing special.
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Policing the Greek crisis would pose a huge challenge, even without the issue of political support for the far right inside the police force”
“Now, only with one phone call saying Golden Dawn is going to pass by, the police is going there. That means the brand name of Golden Dawn is very effective.”
He confirms the party’s strategy is to force police action against migrants and to claim their right to make citizens’ arrests against those they suspect of criminality.
“It’s like fashion – our dress code is now extremely popular and more people want to follow it. The brand name is synonymous with order, law and order and efficiency.”
And if it projects fear among perfectly legal migrants? I ask.
“There are no legal migrants in Greece,” says Mr Panagiotaros “not even one.”
Now Golden Dawn is suddenly everywhere. Its eight local offices at election time have become 60 nationwide. It is polling consistently as the third most popular party at 12%.
Its parliamentarians have threatened to “drag migrant children from the kindergartens,” and requested a list of the kindergartens with high migrant numbers. This, the Greek education ministry has willingly provided.
Time and again there is a pattern to Golden Dawn disturbances.
They target migrants, the Left, lawyers representing migrants, or in the case of the theatre picket, gay people. And the police stand by.
In Athens police are even alleged to have referred people experiencing problems with migrant neighbours to Golden Dawnfor help.
Mr Panagiotaros confirms what opinion polls taken in June indicated: there is support for Golden Dawn inside the police force, way higher than in the general population.
“I think with what they are saying now we have more than 50%, 60% of police staff that are following us – maybe more – every day it is growing,” says Mr Panagiotaros.
Many of his customers are police, who buy not just their riot gear but parts of their actual uniform from his militaria store, where police regulation shirts hang alongside T-shirts praising the Nazi group Combat 18 and the Chelsea Headhunters.
Golden Dawn members gave free food to Greek people after checking their IDsPolicing the Greek crisis would pose a huge challenge, even without the issue of political support for the far right inside the police force.
Anarchists have tried to counter Golden Dawn’s patrols in migrant areas by staging their own, motorbike mounted patrols – hundreds strong.
During a motorbike protest last week, a clash with Golden Dawn occurred.
A unit of the motorbike-mounted police called Delta Force arrested 15 demonstrators, stripping them naked in the prison cells and, say the detainees, using tasers, stress positions, humiliation techniques and beatings.
A report of this in the Guardian last week has become a matter of national controversy here, and is strenuously denied by the government.
On 8 October a further 25 protesters were arrested at a demonstration at the courthouse to support those originally detained.
Yiannis, one of those detained, tells the story:
“They searched us, made us strip, kneel. They hit me on the head and knees. They said we know where you all live.
I meet Yiannis and Maria, two of those alleging mistreatment, in a quiet flat in Exarchia, the bohemian district of Athens.
Both will speak only on condition that I change their names, and film them without showing their faces. Though charged eventually with misdemeanours, they were both held for four nights in police custody.
Yiannis continues: “They said: You’re finished and things are not going to be the way they were from now on.
“They said they would pass on the video they filmed of us to Golden Dawn. They picked on me to use as an example to the others. They kept making me say to every new detainee: ‘if you too disobey they will [hurt] your mother’.”
Maria, who has been calm and confident as we have prepared for the interview, now becomes disturbed as she tells her story.
“They made me strip in front of the others,” she says.
“The Delta police arrived and spoke about Golden Dawn as if they were their siblings, including the officer in charge. They praised Hitler, saying he was better than Stalin.
“They told us we should remember this – that they are Golden Dawn supporters now.”
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The issue driving support for Golden Dawn is clear: illegal migration”
Throughout the ordeal, the arresting officers from the Delta Force, says Maria, continually flaunted their political support for Golden Dawn.
I put the allegations to Lt Col Christos Manouras, the spokesman for the Athens police. He tells me:
“I am categoric that in this incident none of these things happened in the headquarters building of the Attica police. Greek police respect human rights – and this is a non-story.”
He adds: “These allegations were never made to the police. No charges were pressed, so the police could look into this from the beginning.
“All the same, if anybody wants to identify themselves – or even if a general allegation reaches us – we will investigate it further. If it involves police, whether racist violence or violence against another person, Greek or migrant, we investigate in depth.”
Dimitris Psaras, whose new book, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, details the organisation’s recent rise, believes the influence of far right within the police force works at an insidious level:
“There is an osmosis of Golden Dawn supporters, between those working in the police and those in private security as well as those providing night club protection.
“Sometimes the same person can be providing all these three services. They usually meet in local gyms and specific coffee shops owned by those who share the same ideology.”
Mr Psaras believes that harsh police treatment of drug offenders and migrants gives a tacit signal to Golden Dawn that its illegal attacks on these groups are welcome.
I repeatedly put the question to Lt Col Manouras as to what strategy the police commanders have adopted to mitigate the risks of individual police support for Golden Dawn compromising operations.
“Every day we make operational plans of how to deal with such phenomena,” he says.
“Rest assured we stand by the citizens and we try to prevent such situations.
“Of course we can’t be on every corner. We are not magicians, to be able to ensure within two minutes that nothing goes wrong. But we do intervene immediately to normalize the situation.”
Growing support
Golden Dawn has gained ground spectacularly in two leaps. First, during the riotous summer of 2011, when the right wing Christian nationalist party Laos disintegrated after it joined the pro-austerity coalition.
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Last month, the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, warned Europe that his country was on the edge of a Weimar Germany-style social collapse”
Laos vanished and Golden Dawn took its place, scoring 6-7% in the inconclusive Greek elections of May and June 2012.
The second spurt is occurring now, as the coalition government – which includes Conservatives, Socialists and the “moderate” Marxists of the Democratic Left party – has failed to put a lid on the crisis.
And the issue driving support for Golden Dawn is clear: illegal migration.
Faced with virtually uncontrollable borders, the coalition government launched a roundup of migrants from the city streets, and has detained around 4,000 in makeshift camps. A further 3,000 have been deported.
A senior lawmaker in the ruling New Democracy party told me, back in June: “What will solve the Golden Dawn problem is getting an immigration policy. We haven’t had one.”
But the crackdown on immigration has not stopped Golden Dawn’s rise. As the media have joined in – relentlessly identifying foreigners with crime – the far right’s poll rating has increased.
Theodora Oikonomides, a journalist at the alternative radio network RadioBubble, who has covered the rise of Golden Dawn, voices a fear common to many:
“Golden Dawn’s favourite themes, such as xenophobia, homophobia and anti-Semitism have now become part of Greek public discourse, whether at the political or at the social level.
“By failing to take action against Golden Dawn while nodding and winking to its electorate at every opportunity, the Greek politicians – who are now in power with the support of European partners – have opened a Pandora’s box that will not close any time soon.”
Political war
Last month, the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, warned Europe that his country was on the edge of a Weimar Germany-style social collapse.
What I have seen on the streets of Athens convinces me this is not rhetoric. The situation is changing rapidly.
There is a violent far-right party, its MPs committing and inciting violence with impunity; a police force that cannot or will not prevent Golden Dawn from projecting uniformed force on the streets. And a middle class that feels increasingly powerless to turn the situation round.
When Angela Merkel came here last week, there were violent scenes and a total lockdown of the city. Only from the TV news can the German Chancellor have witnessed the impact of the EU-imposed austerity.
Well here is what it looks like to Golden Dawn’s second in command, Ilias Panagiotaros.
In the garden outside his shop, protected by 15-foot high fencing and beefy colleagues in their black T-shirts, he tells me:
“Golden Dawn is at war with the political system and those who represent it, with the domestic and international bankers, we are at war with these invaders – immigrants.
“And if Syriza wins the next election, we will win the one after that. It is not a dream that within one, two or three years we will be the first political party.”
And here is how it looks to Laertis Vassiliou, the theatre director whose play was shut down:
“If the European Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Parliament, the Greek parliament don’t intervene in this situation I am afraid to think what’s going to happen. Europe must do something if they don’t want a revival of the Third Reich again.”
Close up, in other words, the social and political outcome of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and EU (European Union) austerity programme, and of the implosion of mainstream politics in Greece, looks like a catastrophe for democracy.
Turkey & Macedonia 