It’s been quite the week for Greece’s neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn. On Thursday, Golden Dawn MP Giorgos Germenis snuck into an event with the intention of harming Athens mayor, Giogos Kaminis. At one point, Germenis tried to punch Kaminis, but instead ended up punching a 12-year old girl in the forehead. The party has denied that Germenis touched the young girl.
This attack comes after Mayor Kaminis shut down a soup kitchen that Golden Dawn had set up in order to hand out traditional Orthodox Easter food to ethnic Greek Citizens.
Kaminis had banned any such events in the city's main square, and vowed Wednesday not to allow the "soup kitchen of hate" to take place.
But party members with Golden Dawn logo emblazoned across the backs of their black T-shirts arrived more than two hours before the announced time with a truck carrying meat, potatoes and other goods and began handing out bags of food after checking recipients' identity cards.
Scuffles broke out with riot police, who used pepper spray to repel party members wielding Greek flags on thick wooden sticks.
While the soup kitchen was in all accounts a success, there was a major catch. Before receiving Greek Easter favorites (such as lamb), Golden Dawn required that each individual show their identification card. This way, the anti-foreigner party could validate whether or not the person was ‘truly Greek.’
Golden Dawn has never been shy about their distaste towards foreigners who move to Greece. In true ultra-nationalist form, the party hopes to one day purge the country of all people that are not Greek, as they define it.
As the third largest political party in Greece gains more approval from angry and unemployed Greeks, situations such as these will only grow in number. Already in 2013 there have been multiple instances of Golden Dawn flexing their newly founded popularity.
