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Anastasia Balezdrova

The Athens prosecutor's office has ordered the launching of pre-trial proceedings in connection with the documentary in which a Golden Dawn’s candidate for deputy threatens immigrants with crematoria and "opening of gas chambers." The prosecutors have requested the police to investigate and detect the presence of violations of the law against racism and of a racist crime to the degree of criminal offense.

Policemen will have to see all the unmounted frames from the filmmakers’ work and describe in detail all the dialogues. Then, the Golden Dawn’s candidate for deputy will be called to testify as a suspect. All participants who voiced threats against immigrants will be called in the same way.

The justice has been approached regarding a report of the British television Channel 4 had broadcast, about which GRReporter informed its readers yesterday. Its title "Racist, anti-semitic, violent - the true face of Golden Dawn" leaves no doubt about the media’s position to the Greek fans of Hitler’s methods. At the beginning of the report, the media warns the viewers that the video contains very offensive and racist language.

This is something that the majority of Greek media do not do. This was one of the conclusions of the discussion on "Media and the neo-Nazism phenomenon", which was held at the union of journalists in Athens.

According to the participants, the electoral success and the rise of Golden Dawn, which has been the third political force for months, are misinterpreted as a surprise, since the conditions for it have been present for years. The position of the Greek media has contributed to it for certain as they not only have failed to conduct journalistic investigations of the nature of the problem, but often fall into the trap to actually boost the neo-Nazis.

One of the main problems is that a large number of the media spread unconfirmed information in practice, which takes the form and authenticity of a report. Such cases are the publication of a photo, which shows a Golden Dawner "guarding" an old woman while she is withdrawing her pension from an ATM. It turned out later that the woman was not a stranger but the mother of one of the party’s candidates for deputy. Similarly, all television channels showed the attacks of members, including Golden Dawn’s members, against foreigners-vendors in the markets. "The television channels just showed the videos without ever saying that Golden Dawn itself had provided them, which has been taking advantage of every opportunity to be present in the public domain," pointed out many of the participants in the discussion.

Another key remark was that in many cases, the Golden Dawners have been presented in a positive light by showing moments of their lives. "All this, along with the fact that they rely a lot on their appearance that is attractive to teenagers, gives publicity to them without ever paying attention to the fact that many of them are or were sued for assaults, robberies and other criminal activities," said the editor of Kathimerini newspaper Nikos Xidakis.

Some journalists criticized the position of the left wing that "has been rejecting for years concepts such as homeland and belonging to a nation. That is where the extreme right wing and neo-Nazism have squeezed through."

They firmly rejected "the theory of equal violence by the two political extremes" and said that the burden of dealing with the phenomenon of Golden Dawn fell on the shoulders of the right wing. "The emphasis on the theory of the two extremes leads to a civil war. Ultimately, anarchists do not participate in the elections and the extreme left wing received only 1% of the vote. The extreme right wing is the one that has entered the parliament and whose popularity is steadily growing," said Nikos Xidakis.
 
Both he and his colleague from Kathimerini newspaper Tasos Telloglou put forward the funding of Golden Dawn. The investigative journalist said that he has collected from different sources data on the funding of the xenophobes. "Golden Dawn was financially supported by parties that belong to the so-called constitutional arc. They helped it in previous election races by printing their election materials in order to break the rise of LAOS party. But in 2012, these funds were not sufficient. I have data showing that before the elections in May last year, they received cash from shipping tycoons, developers, lawyers and may be a bank," he said.

Tasos Telloglou analyzed before that the relationships of Golden Dawn with members of state institutions such as the judiciary, the church, the police and military forces. "It is not yet clear how and why these relationships have developed or whether they are connected with their level of education and standard of living. According to the data, while a large number of ordinary policemen voted for Golden Dawn, a large number of the high-standing persons in the hierarchy voted for SYRIZA."

It was considered during the discussion how the prohibition of Golden Dawn could help to stop the spread of the neo-Nazi ideology. Regardless of their political affiliations, the journalists said that such a move would only strengthen the support to the xenophobes. However, they called for a vote on a law on parties that should clearly define the conditions for those who want to receive the vote of the Greeks and to enter the parliament.

Journalists agreed with the idea of establishing rules to reflect the activities of Golden Dawn so that the media can no longer glorify it.

The statement of journalist Lina Alexiou, a member of the National Council for Radio and Television, roused the interest of the participants. "In an interview for the public ERT television, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front in France, almost rebuked the correspondent who had asked him if the party had connections with Golden Dawn, saying, "How can you ask me such a thing? We have nothing to do with them, neither ideologically nor in any other terms. We are a party and you have a gang of criminals in Greece."