Yes busted. Booya!
The leader of Greece’s extreme-right Golden Dawn party and four other of its lawmakers were formally charged Saturday with membership in a criminal organization with intent to commit crimes, in an escalation of a government crackdown after a fatal stabbing blamed on a supporter.
It was the first time since 1974 that sitting members of Parliament have been arrested. The arrests underline the Greek government’s efforts to stifle the fiercely anti-immigrant party, which has been increasingly on the defensive since the killing.
Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos, party spokesman Ilias Kassidiaris and Yannis Lagos, Nikos Michos and Ilias Panayiotaros were arrested by counterterrorism police. The latter two gave themselves up voluntarily. A sixth lawmaker, Christos Pappas — described in a prosecutor’s report as the Golden Dawn’s No. 2 — remains at large.
An additional 15 people, including 13 Golden Dawn members and two police officers, have also been arrested and are due to appear before a prosecutor and an examining magistrate soon. They face the same charges.
That is good news.
H/t Simon but tell me more promptly next time.
I wish the Greek government hadn’t waited until now to do something about Golden Dawn. It appears that the only thing which inspired these arrests was that this time they murdered a Greek, which is a serious matter — as opposed to all their prior beatings and murders of foreigners. Such is the state of justice in modern Greece. (Not that ancient Greek justice was all that just, or I wouldn’t be reading Plato’s Apologia with my students every semester.)
thephilosophicalprimate (#1) –
As the news said, it’s the first time since 1974 that members of parliament were arrested. That was back when the fascist military junta was removed and Greece returned to democracy under a series of democractically elected socialist governments. The lack of haste in arresting Golden Dawn members might be a legacy of history, an unwillingness to be overzealous and a preference to be thorough.
It was later that the US started trying to overthrow the democracy and return the fascists to power. The CIA’s Richard Welch got himself killed (he wasn’t murdered, he brought it on himself) in 1975. Contrary to the US government’s lies, Philip Agee did not out him.
Things are going to get nastier in Greece before this settles itself out.
Er, thanks for the hat tip 🙂
left0ver1under: The first democratically elected governments after the 1974 ouster of the fascist regime of colonels where conservative starting with Karamanlis’s newly formed (at the time) New Democracy party which is leading the current coalition. The first elected “socialist” government was in 1981 with Andreas Papandreou’s PASOK party (the junior partner in the current coalition). They were social democrats at the time and have since moved to the right.
A big complaint against Karamanlis after 1974 is that apart from jailing the top people in the coup regime they really didn’t make any effort to combat the remnants of the fascist dictatorship. Indeed the current Golden Dawn leader was a member of the fascist political party of one of the former leaders which was formed while he was in prison. The notorious anti-semitic writer Kostas Plevris (who has been on outs with GD for decades) was also was also extremely close with the coup leadership. All of their sympathizers remained more or less in place throughout the police and intelligence service.
Also, re: Welch I wouldn’t say he “brought it on himself”. Yes, it was a bit of an open secret at the time that he was CIA, but the fact remains he was the first victim of the leftist terrorist group November 17, which was quite a bold move at the time. I believe he was the first CIA officer to be assassinated by terrorists. His address had been published in the Greek press before he was assassinated, I don’t know the precise timeline of Agee’s book/magazine. More info on that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Welch