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September 18, 2014

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Antifascists unveil monument to mark one year from Pavlos Fyssas death

A year has passed since anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas died by a self-proclaimed member of the far right Golden Dawn party. To mark the memorial, a series of events took place on Thursday in Keratsini, Athens and other Greek cities by antifascist groups and/or other organizations.

At the site of the murder a monument was unveiled which honors Fyssas and later on an antifascist protest and march was held.

On Friday, September 19th, the friends and family of Fyssas and members of various antifascist initiatives are organizing a concert, which is set to take place at 17:00 at Syntagma Square.

Also, an antifascist meeting is expected to be held at the Selepitsari Park in Keratsini on Sunday, followed by a concert on the grounds of the nearby high school.

Meanwhile, the Appeals Council decided to extend the detention period by six months of Golden Dawn member George Roupakias. The self-proclaimed member of Greece's far-right party, who is currently being held in the Malandrino Prison, recently requested to be released on bail until his trial, claiming to have regretted his crime and citing financial reasons.

The slew of revelations in the press following the murder and the investigation by judicial authorities brought to light a host of so called "evidence" which wants to show us that the Golden Dawn party is involved in criminal activities, and in the murder as well. All this of course will be proved in the much-awaited upcoming trials, with the trial of Pavlos Fyssas coming first, but if one was to listen to the Greek media the members of GD have already been judged and crucified for their supposed crimes.

As to the substance of the act there is no doubt, whatsoever, that Fyssas' death was a brutal crime, a classic stabbing, where one of the two men used a weapon against his opponent. The victim was clearly taken back, stabbed and unfortunately died from these deep wounds.

But Fyssas' death also has a political dimension to it as well. Let us not forget that Fyssas' murder prompted Greek authorities to begin extensive investigations into Golden Dawn's activities, which has lead to the detention of a large portion of its leaders as well as a good number of its MPs.

Editor's note: We have said many times here at HellasFrappe that the government is not going to make Golden Dawn disappear by highlighting their alleged criminal activity. In fact the opposite is happening because Greece's political elite refuses to face off with them politically. Today its Golden Dawn, tomorrow the same protagonists or others like them could operate under another name. Their supporters will not go away, they will become more determined to get their voices heard and they will become more polarized. That is why GD had to be faced off politically, but our political elite (especially the Communist Party of Greece) treated them as second rate citizens and never once as political opponents. HellasFrappe wants to remind our far-leftist friends that if it wasn't for the late Constantine Karamanlis (yes the founder of the rightest New Democracy party) they would not even exist today. Karamanlis, who was a man of reason, who respected democracy and always did the obvious by using good old COMMON SENSE, legalized the Communist party even though he (and his party) were subjected to their ridiculous rhetoric for years. He never once shunned them, or treated them as second rate citizens. nor did he ever show signs of prejudice against their ideals and political philosophies. He faced off with them politically, because he knew that sooner or later the people of Greece would come to their own conclusions. The result? Greeks began moving away from the Communist party and that is why this party barely makes it to Parliament during every election run. So what can we conclude from all of this? Well we have said it before, and we will repeat it once more: Greece gave birth to democracy and freedom of speech and our political elite should have respected this fact before they decided to point the finger at a party that followed a different philosophy and set of ideals. If GD's ideals are too raw, or too way out there for some to handle, then why couldn't Greece's political elite allow the people to see through them. If real political dialogue was held, Greek citizens would sooner or later come to their own conclusions. But they instead slandered them by calling them neo-Nazis, criminals (even before their cases were held in court) and murderers. Also, they actually had the audacity to jail most of the party when we all know that characters such as George Papakonstantinou, George Papandreou, and a truckload of other MPs are still walking free (and we all know and suspect what they are accused of). They did this because Golden Dawn was not part of their establishment and because they were, and clearly still are, too afraid to square off with them politically. Mark our words Frappers, this whole case will boomerang against everyone who was either too afraid, to prejudice, or just too idiotic to do the obvious as Karamanlis did. Roupakias was ruthless and he must be judged before a court for his crimes, but this crime cannot be used by our political system to make Golden Dawn disappear, only political dialogue can.


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