Activities
Golden Dawn claimed to have local organisations in 32 Greek cities, as well as in Cyprus.
The party created the Epitropi Ethnikis Mnimis (Committee of National Memory), to organise demonstrations commemorating the anniversaries of certain Greek national events. Since 1996, Epitropi Ethnikis Mninis organizes an annual march usually on January 31 in Athens, in memory of three Greek officers who died during the Imia military crisis. According to the European National Front website, the 2006 march was attended by 2,500 people, although no neutral sources have confirmed that number. Epitropi Ethnikis Mninis has continued its activities, and the January 31 March took place in January 2010.
Epitropi Ethnikis Mnimis has organized annual rallies on June 17 in Thessalonica, in memory of Alexander the Great. Police confronted the 2006 rally participants, forcing Golden Dawn and Patriotic Alliance members to leave the area after conflicts with leftist groups. Later that day, Golden Dawn members gathered in the building of state-owned television channel ERT3 and held a protest as they tried to stop the channel from broadcasting. Police surrounded the building and arrested 48 Golden Dawn members.
In September 2005, Golden Dawn attempted to organise a festival called "Eurofest 2005 – Nationalist Summer Camp" at the grounds of a Greek summer camp. The planned festival depended on the participation of the German National Democratic Party of Germany, the Italian Forza Nuova and the Romanian Noua Dreaptă, as well as Spanish and American far-right groups. The festival was banned by the government.
In June 2007, Golden Dawn sent representatives to protest against the G8 convention in Germany, together with the National Democratic Party of Germany and other European far-right organisations.
In June 2011, Foreign Policy reported that in the midst of the 2010–2011 Greek protests, gangs of Golden Dawn members were increasingly being seen in some of the higher-crime areas of Athens. In May 2012, the BBC reported on how Golden Dawn had become sort of a local 'Robin Hood' in some high-immigration areas of Athens, since the party was developing a social program including the delivery of free or minimal cost food among the most unfavored strata of ethnic Greeks. The party offers protection for victims of crime, a service that has been appreciated by citizens and utilized by the police, which refers Athenians to the Golden Dawn for help, especially when immigrant crime is involved. The party, however, demands allegiance in return for their service.
Read more about this topic: Golden Dawn (Greece)
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“The most remarkable aspect of the transition we are living through is not so much the passage from want to affluence as the passage from labor to leisure.... Leisure contains the future, it is the new horizon.... The prospect then is one of unremitting labor to bequeath to future generations a chance of founding a society of leisure that will overcome the demands and compulsions of productive labor so that time may be devoted to creative activities or simply to pleasure and happiness.”
—Henri Lefebvre (b. 1901)
“The old, subjective, stagnant, indolent and wretched life for woman has gone. She has as many resources as men, as many activities beckon her on. As large possibilities swell and inspire her heart.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (18591964)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (18591952)