Golden Dawn film: Greek party defiant as police investigate

Ilias Kasidiaris (pictured), who was on Thursday acquitted by a court in Athens of complicity in an assault and robbery, told reporters on the court steps: “many would like to see Golden Dawn marginalised, but we are here, we are strong, and very shortly we shall be ruling.”

Spokesman for the neo-Nazi party, Mr Kasidiaris was stripped of his parliamentary immunity as an MP so that the trial could go ahead. On Thursday several hundred Golden Dawn supporters gathered at the court building where Mr Kasidiaris poured scorn on the press, saying:

“From the first moment I was saying that I was innocent, and today justice said that I am innocent. I rub this decision in your snouts: yours, your bosses, contractors, channel owners and our miserable political opponents who wanted me to be in prison today.”

Last June Mr Kasidiaris was seen slapping a Communist party MP in the face during a live television debate. He then disappeared from public view until his arrest warrant expired two days later.

Police investigation

Following the broadcast of a film by Channel 4 News on Tuesday in which a member of the party threatened to turned immigrants into soap, the Athens public prosecutor Panagiota Fakou has asked the police to investigate whether a race hate crime has been committed.

In the film – which has now been passed to the prosecuting authorities – 44-year-old Alexandros Plomaritis, who was a Golden Dawn candidate in last year’s elections, said:

“We are ready to open the ovens. We will turn them into soap .. to wash cars and pavements. We will make lamps from their skin.”

See the film in full below.

Warning: this video contains highly offensive and racist language

Condemnation

The film has caused a political furore in Greece, with politicians condemning the remarks.

Democratic Left MP Giannis Panousis said “we are entitled to diversity, and where there is crime we should punish it .. I am afraid that Greece, and Greeks who say such things, have taken a very wrong road.”

Konstantinos Triandafilidis, a Pasok MP, said “these people, unfortunately with the votes of some of our citizens .. insult Greeks, insult all of us.”

Adonis Georgiadis, of the centre-right New Democracy party, told Channel 4 News on Tuesday “many people in Greece are very much concerned about the changing of the population because of illegal immigrants” but added “Golden Dawn is a disgrace for our society and our democracy.”

Support for the party has risen sharply as the country undergoes harsh austerity measure to tackle its dire economic crisis.

In the May 2012 parliamentary elections Golden Dawn won 21 seats, but this was reduced to 18 seats in the subsequent poll in June that year, in which it got almost a 7 per cent share of the popular vote.