Folk Singer attacked in Greece 7:10 pm / 03 October 2009 by Royce Christian, at .urbandissent
When Greece erupted into riots after the shooting of a 15 year old by a Athenian cop, I was amazed at the nonchalance quite a few self-labelled ‘Libertarians’ took to the events. Amazingly, some ‘Libertarians’ argued that the 15 year old brought the shooting on himself and claimed the riots were entirely unjustified. There was something insulting about the tone of such people. Apparently, it was propaganda to correct statements made by the Greek Government and Mainstream Media that slandered the victim by claiming that he (and thirty others wearing hoods and armed with molotov cocktails) attacked the cop first, despite the eye witness accounts and video footage that showed no violent crowd. It was more or less asserted that ‘the Greeks reacted unreasonably‘ to an incident that the ‘kid brought upon himself’.
That being said, much time has passed since then. Lest people forget, what I want post here was an article picked up by LibCom.org and reported in the Athenian Indymedia about an attack on a young Greek Folk singer. I want to repost this story because it illustrates, perfectly, what the Greek Anarchists and others who took part in the unrest are tasked with opposing and how ill-informed (to put it politely) those critics were.
Greek neonazi fascists para-state thugs used extreme sexist violence against a defenceless young lady in Athens, spraying her face for refusing to read their flyers, while the nearby police car did not intervene. The woman is still in hospital.
At 1 Octover 2009 in Greece, midday, about 30 neonazi thugs, members of the Chrysi Avgi para-state fascist organisation, gathered around the Katechaki Metro station in Athens to distribute their propaganda and put up hate-speech banners, all handling Greek flags.
A young lady, singer and artist Sofia Papazoglou, happened to be at that Metro station and the fascists forced her to get one of their flyers, which after she recognised as racist she threw it away in a trash bin a few metres away from them, without provoking them. Immediately, however, 10 (ten) para-state neonazi sexist thugs attacked the defenceless woman using extreme violence and spraying her face, in front of Metro employees.
The nearby police car did not intervene at all, allowing the neonazis to finish their sexist attack against an innocent artist. The defenceless young woman was taken to a hospital after Metro employees called an ambulance, and she is still being taken care of there. Her vision is still not completely resumed.
The ANTARSYA and EEK(Trotskyists) political parties immediately published communiques in support of the victim of this sexist attack by para-state fascists.
Sofia Papazoglou, a popular folk singer was attacked by members of the Golden Dawn neo-nazi party in Athens after throwing election leaflets handed to her in the garbage. The singer remains hospitalised with serious burns from use of unidentified acid spray and with impaired vision.
Sofia Papazoglou, a popular folk singer of the “entehno” genre known for her progressive politics was attacked on Thursday 1st of October outside the metro station of Katehaki, in Athens, by ten members of the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn when she threw election leaflets handed to her by the thugs in the garbage. The Golden Dawn was created in the 1980s by the convicted neo-nazi bomber Mihaloliakos at the orders of the imprisoned head of the military junta of 1967-1974 Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. Since, the Golden Dawn has been waging a campaign of terror against the left wing and anarchists as well as immigrants, people of color and jews. Nevertheless, as it comes under the explicit protection of EYP, the greek secret services (the daily eleftherotypia has published a pay-sheet of Mihaloliakos by EYP), the neo-nazi group has never been persecuted and is allowed to participate in national elections. As a clear indication of the above patron-client relation with the secret services, the election campaign booth of the neo-nazis was placed this year directly under the headquarters of the EYP, in Katehaki avenue, a few meters away from the main riot police camp of the greek capital. When Ms Papazoglou threw the racist leaflets in the bin, ten thugs attacked her with a still unidentified acid spray in the eyes and then proceeded to beat her up savagely. The police did not intervene and the folk singer was taken to hospital after the intervention of metro workers. Half an hour later the neo-nazis were dispersed by anarchist who arrived at the spot upon hearing the news of the new vicious attack.
Ms Papazoglou remains in hospital with impaired vision and serious burns and bruises on her body. The Golden Dawn denies involvement in the incident, decrying it as “rumors spread by dirty jews and freemasons” and “protectors of ecologists and greens”…
