Greece: Golden Dawn denies role in migrant attacks
03. June 2012. | 07:38
Source: Athensnews
Ever since the end of the of the first round of the country's election battle, the capital has been rocked by a series of brutal attacks on unregistered migrants, all of which have looked and felt like textbook Golden Dawn attacks.
Ever since the end of the of the first round of the country's election battle, the capital has been rocked by a series of brutal attacks on unregistered migrants, all of which have looked and felt like textbook Golden Dawn attacks.
Each attack's m.o. has been similar, with a well orchestrated group of helmeted thugs, barging into metro trains and physically abusing immigrants, or roaming the streets in small biker groups, singling out targets and attacking them.
While Golden Dawn have refused that any of these incidents have been carried out by party members, saying that it is all a part of an elaborate media plan to demonise them and thus slash their potential election results on June 17, it has really been impossible to find any other suspects for this series of beating and stabbings that have been inflicted on the migrant population of Greece.
If however Golden Dawn were hoping of actually uncovering a conspiracy and distancing themselves from such incidents, then yesterday night's events will have certainly put a dent in their efforts to prove their innocence.
As reported by the Greek authorities, at 21.30 on Saturday, at the crossroads of Pireos avenue and Thrakis street, in the Tavros area of Athens, a group of bikers taking part in a Golden Dawn rally moving through Athens, attacked and injured a 31 year old Pakistani national who happened to be walking past.
Members of the Delta motorcycle unit arrived on scene soon after the assailants escpaed and while not managing to apprehend them, intercepted another group from the same rally, who tried to attack a group of migrants on the Konstantinoupoleos and Iera Odos intersection.
Authorities reported the arrest of six people including Golden Dawn MPs Ilias Panagiotaros and Giannis Vouldis as well as the daughter of Golden Dawn chief Nikos Mihaloliakos, Ourania. All however were released soon after, as no charges were levelled against them.
The Golden Dawn party, as expected, released a statement soon after, once again arguing their innocence:
"After the incident in the Kipseli area, where police following state orders broke up a perfectly legal Golden Dawn pre-election infomational rally, so too yesterday did they arrest party members, because of an incident involving an attack on some immigrant, that took place kilometers away from where our members were. We could of course have had nothing to do with the incident, if for no other reason but the simple fact that our party members were nowhere near it. Golden Dawn, like we have said before, denies any involvement with incidents of violence and condemns the police's role in the state mechanism's fight against our party".
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